


Hail, Hydra or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Infinite Elevator

by AraniaArt, Kamiki, Trinantula



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hydra wins, Angst, Capwolf, Character Death, Dimension Travel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Time Travel, Vampire Bucky Barnes, Werewolf Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:59:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4385768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraniaArt/pseuds/AraniaArt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamiki/pseuds/Kamiki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trinantula/pseuds/Trinantula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1945: In a 616-inspired world, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are present when the storming of Normandy beach goes horribly awry when Hydra shows up with advanced weaponry.  They, along with hundreds of other allied troops, are captured and taken away to a Hydra research facility, where they become victims of Hydra's latest experiments to create an army of werewolves.  Captain America's super soldier serum allows him to keep his wits about him, but Bucky is not so lucky... </p><p>2017: in a MCU-inspired world, The Winter Soldier snaps out of his programming.... just a few seconds too late to stop himself from killing Steve Rogers.  Nicholas Fury really is dead, and Alexander Pierce survives, along with one functioning helicarrier.  The Winter Soldier, on a revenge-fueled streak, chases Alexander Pierce through a portal in a Hydra research facility that leads to a world where Steve Rogers is still alive, minus one Bucky Barnes...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue 1: Captain America

**Author's Note:**

> This fic as a whole is the ongoing log of an RP. Therefore, there will be some unusual perspective shifts. Additionally, the fic is mostly un-beta'd.  
> New characters will be added to the list as the story goes, as will other tags. At some point, this story will be kicked up into the explicit category.
> 
> NOTE 2/2017: This fic will likely not be continued. Read at your own risk at this of being a permanent WIP!

June 6, 1944 should have been a day that lived on as a decisive victory for the allies.  Fleets of British and American troops converged on the French coast after months of planning in a concerted attack.  Captain America and Bucky had been recalled to the front to help lead the assault and bolster morale.  Victory should have been a foregone conclusion.  The allied forces were almost 25,000 strong.  But instead, all of the planning, the grand assault began to fall apart almost before the fight began.

Hydra was prepared.  Somehow, they had transported ground vehicles along the coast to meet the assault head-on.  And long before the ships and aircraft should have been within range, missiles began to strike them down.  Ground troops spilled out of the ships like a lanced boil, but the battlefield quickly dissolved into chaos and screams.  How could things have gone so wrong?  Cap was as familiar with the instruments of war as the back of his hand, and his expert eye realized that the familiar vehicles were not operating normally.  They were able to fire from almost twice their normal range, with devastating accuracy.  The firearms in the hands of the troops held more rounds, the bullets tearing through the allies’ vests.  

Many of the troops storming the beach were newer recruits, and despite Cap’s leadership, ranks broke, and Hydra swarmed, engulfing the allies.  They were prepared for this.  Groups of allied troops were surrounded on all sides.  Strange, braided metal nets were fired from large gunlike contraptions, tufted darts fired among the fleeing allied troops.  Bucky watched as Bucky caught a pair of darts in his shoulder.  He wavered on his feet and dropped hard to the ground. And before he knew it, one, two, a half dozen darts penetrated his uniform, the needles working between the chinks in Cap’s armor.  His vision went cloudy, the beach seemed to shimmer and wave… and then everything went black.  
*  
*  
*  
Consciousness was a brief visitor over the next… the next… it was hard to tell.  Various snippets of information came to Steve in short bursts before more darts shot into him to return him to the darkness.  His wrists and ankles were bound in sturdy, heavy manacles that seemed to be forged of solid steel with no obvious locks.  They held up to even his straining.  But the moment any guard noticed him trying them, more darts with what must have been a souped up tranquilizer put him back under.   
  
They were moving.  The rumbling and bumping indicated a troop transport covered vehicle.  But it wasn’t just a canvas cover – in the glimpses he could catch between thick eyelashes – he caught sight of solid steel.  He could hear the echoing rumble of other wheels suggesting that there were other vehicles in the convoy. 

A lot of time must have passed.  Steve’s stomach ached with hunger.  Occasionally, he woke to a wet face, residual moisture in his mouth.  It was hard to say if it was a relief or more terrifying that they were making an effort to keep them alive. 

There were other men in there with him, piled up around him on the hard floor of the bed of the truck.  Hydra troops sat along the edges with rifles at attention and pointed towards them, ready to re-tranq anyone who woke up.  
  
Bucky was there.  Laying only a few people away from him.   
  
*  
*  
*  
Jostling roused Steve into a bleary consciousness.  Several pairs of strong arms were maneuvering him off of the truck and into a larger room.  The trucks must have driven straight in, closing off bay doors before they even opened the convoy.   Another Dart, two… enough to keep him barely conscious.  And then the world was a smear of color that only his adamant willpower allowed him to make sense of.  It was a massive room full of small prison cells, a cacophony of orders barked in German and Italian, and occasionally heavily-accented English or French.  POWs – Americans, Brits, and even a few men of other nationalities, were being drug into the cells: three to five men a pen.  And as each one was thrown in, they were given another injection – but this one seemed different.  Not from the barrel of a rifle, but administered directly via syringe by Hydra officers.  
  
Equipment was also being unloaded from the vehicles, and Steve caught a brief glimpse of his shield, along with several duffle bags worth of firearms, being carried out of the room, presumably deeper into the complex.  As he looked around, he caught sight of floodlights and loudspeakers mounted in the high ceilings, and catwalks that looked out over the pit of cells. 

That’s when he felt it: a different sensation.  An injection in his own arm before he was tossed into the cell, still wearing manacles.  His consciousness swam, but lingered, and a burning sensation flared at his bicep, heat spreading through his veins from the injection site.  A moment later, another young man in army fatigues and private marks was tossed in… and then Bucky.  Both of them still apparently unconscious.  
  
The cell door slammed shut with a resounding CLANK.  The steel was thick – thicker than any cells he’d seen.   There was a brief crackle of electricity that seemed to pass over the lock, and Steve’s manacles fell away, and immediately were pulled out through the bars to a magnetized disc.   
  
A tray of gloopy food was roughly kicked under the grating of the bars, as the Hydra agents continued to secure the mostly unconscious prisoners into the other cells around the facility.  And by the time the last prisoners were secured and the trucks were driven away, the warehouse gates rolled down, shutting out the natural light in exchange for the yellowish artificial lamps from above, Steve was feeling much more clearheaded.  
  
Just in time for the crawlingly familiar clicking tromp of heavy, polished boots.  Steve knew exactly who it was before he rounded the corner, a skeletal grin on his ghastly red face.  

Schmidt.  The Red Skull.  
  
He stopped a dozen paces from Steve’s cell, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes shining from their heavy brow.  “Ahhh, Keptain. How _good_ it is to see you in such a state.  How does it feel, Steven, to have been there for the allies’ greatest defeat? ”

Steve was on his feet immediately, refusing to let Red Skull see him otherwise.  He felt shaky; strange in his own skin, not that he would let it show.  “You may have won that battle,” he said, hoping his voice wasn’t as shaky as it felt in his throat, “But you will lose the war.”  
  
Schmidt unabashedly loosed a hearty laugh.  “Tell me.  Who is the one behind the bars?  Look to your men.  Your allies.  They are all in my grasp now.  Your attack, the one your generals were so confident of fell to pieces before the great war machine of Hydra.  You will never broach the Iron Curtain.”  He half turned, a manic expression as he side-eyed his nemesis, “You know, there was once a time I would have welcomed you by my side, another superior man.  You had your chance to join me, Herr Keptain.  Once.  You were my equal.  But no longer.”  

“Tyranny will never prevail,” he seethed, his hands clenching into fists beside him.  “Not for long.  It’s against human nature.”  He knew he was going to walk away and fear gripped Steve’s heart.  These were his darkest secrets; he wanted to cry out - a dark part of him wanted to beg for mercy, plead to be let out.  But he wouldn’t be Captain America if he ever listened to those small, weak voices.  No, instead he steeled himself, his lip curling into a sneer.  He knew he was probably going to die in here, and he would eventually learn to be at peace with that.  He would be a martyr - an example to everyone that it’s better to die on your feet then live on your belly.  “We will never stop fighting you.  Ever.”

“Ve shall see about that, Keptain.” The Skull sneered, the grin never leaving his face.   
  
Something, perhaps the grating sound of the Skull’s voice, caused Bucky to stir subtly, groaning.  
  
“But I suspect that for all your words, all of your bluster, you will fail.  I will see you turn on your country, will crushed under the boot of Hydra.”  He pivoted, showing the confidence to turn his back on the cage.  “Now, Arnim, come.  We have matters to attend to.”  
  
Steve’s attention was immediately drawn to Bucky as he heard him, leaving Skull to his self-aggrandizing.  “Bucky!” he dropped his knees beside him, brushing his bangs out of his eyes.    He quickly grabbed the small, filthy cup provided for them full of murky water and swiped some of the liquid over his chapped lips.  “Hey, kid, you awake?”

Bucky coughed, groaning in regret immediately after as his tongue went to the liquid.  “… not a kid.” He grunted, quirking a smile despite looking like he’d been through the wringer.   
  
The clicking of Skull’s polished boots faded into the background as Bucky forced himself to roll to his knees, scrubbing at his face with a groan.  “’The hell happened..?”  

“I’m not sure,” Cap admitted, helping Bucky into a sitting position.  “I don’t know where we are, but somehow Hydra got new weapon technology.  We were wholly unprepared, Bucky.  This is bad.”  
  
Bucky’s jaw clenched as he got roughly to a seat, leaning heavily against the thick bars of the cell.  He rubbed at his temples and looked blearily around.  “Hell,” He grumbled with a shake of his head.  Memories of the disastrous attack filtered back to him, but he tried not to let his face grow more ashen.  
  
“But… but hey… we’ve been in sticky situations before, Cap….”  He trailed off, taking in the dozens of cells around them and the rest of the prisoners, many of which were also groaning and coming to.  “I got a poundin’ headache…” He muttered, “Christ, I wonder how long we were out.”  

Cap didn’t answer, just frowned as he joined Bucky in the survey of the cells.  He had already tried to determine a plan of escape, but so far everything was pretty solid.  He didn’t have his shield, and the bars were strong enough that even he couldn’t bend them.  “They kept shooting us with something,” he lamented.  “From what I gather, coming in and out, it’s been more than 48 hours.”

Bucky frowned, sipping a bit more of the murky water before making a face and shoving it aside.  “Guess that explains why my arm’s so sore.  And that means we’re probably pretty far from the front…” He grumbled before looking Steve up and down, huffing a sigh.  “But you got a plan, right?  You always got a plan.”

Cap’s jaw clenched.  “They’ll have to open the cells sometime,” he said, surveying the bars again.  “Eventually someone will slip up.”

The confident grin found its way back to Bucky's face, though it didn't quite reach his eyes, "And then we'll get 'em, huh, Cap?" He chimed in, making a fist and punching his other palm.  
  
“Yeah, Bucky,” he said, forcing his own smile.  “Then we’ll get ‘em.”   He looked towards the other man in the cell with them, leaning down beside him and putting his fingers to his neck to check for a pulse.

The pulse beneath his fingers was steady if a little slow, and at the contact a weak groan came from the young man.  His eyes fluttered and he shifted, squinting up at Cap.  He blinked, brows furrowed before they opened wider in surprise.  For a moment, an incredulous smile crossed his face, “Cap?  Captain America?? That really you?”   
  
“Hey, Soldier,” he said, keeping the charming smile on his face.  He pulled him up into a sitting position and motioned for Bucky to hand him the water.  “What’s your name?"

In a flash, the water cup was in Steve’s hand and Bucky scooted closer, trying to keep the concern from showing on his face.   
  
“Private Gibbs, Sir!  Captain America!  Sir!” The soldier responded enthusiastically, despite a croak to his voice from thirst.  “Billy Gibbs.  From Milwaukee.  I-“ He trailed off, only then catching sight of the bars around them and realizing that just because he woke up to Captain America did not in fact mean he was saved.  

“Nice to meet you, Gibbs,” Cap said, handing him the water.  “We’re in a bit of a pickle, you going to be up to helping us out when we get the chance, Soldier?"

“C-Course, Sir!”  He responded quickly, his tone indicating he may not have been long out of basic.  But his eyes darted around, taking in the room full of cells and other soldiers also coming to, murmuring amongst themselves.  Guards in Hydra uniforms patrolled amid the aisles between them, banging on the bars of any of the cells getting rowdy.  Those particularly abrasive prisoners got an electric charge run through their cages via what seemed to be a stun baton.  The iron bars connected to a metal slab below, making the shocks nearly unavoidable.   
  
Bucky’s eyes darted around the room, surveying the situation and cementing into a scowl.  But… Cap had to be right.  “Hey, don’t worry, Kid.” He said, happy to call someone else ‘Kid’ – “Cap’s got a plan.  They’ve kept us alive, so they’re not gonna leave us in here forever.  Soon as we get the chance, we’re getting’ outta here.”  
  
But the chance didn’t come the first day.  As much as they hated to admit it, Hydra was prepared for the influx of prisoners.  Food and water was delivered through metal trays kicked through a small window at the base of one of the barred “walls” of the cell.  But only after the previous meal’s plate was kicked back out to them, otherwise food was withheld.  A slop bucket was also left in the corner.   
  
However, that night, the first signs of fever began to show among the prisoners.  Moans and shivering became a low chorus around the room.   
Cries for help went out to impassive guards, who did nothing other than provide more water to the men.  By dawn, there were at least a few deaths.  The guards ordered the living to sit with their backs to the bars, and cuffed them to a bar with the same strange manacles Steve had worn for the transport while they cleared out the bodies.   Those that refused were left with the deceased in the cells until they complied.  
  
The fever didn’t strike everyone, not at first, but by mid morning, four out of five men had succumbed to aching pains, fever, and cold sweats.  Bucky and Steve were no exception.  
  
For Steve, he could feel a tightness in his muscles, an elevated body temperature, and a slight headache, but he was far from incapacitated.  By late morning, however, Bucky was hot with fever, sweating, his uniform damp with it, but shaking as if it were freezing.  He was balled up on himself, arms wrapped around his stomach and groaning.   
  
Private Gibbs, while concerned, seemed unaffected.  

Steve had never been so scared in his life.  His pain was secondary; while he was concerned about the fact he was getting sick at all - he still remembered what it felt like to shudder all night long from boughts of pneumonia.  No, of course his main concern was Bucky.  

Steve held him close when he shivered, making sure he got as much water as he could spare without dehydration.  “Hang in there, Bucky…” he said softly, wiping the hair stuck to his skin off his forehead, frowning at the heat he felt.  “We got ‘em on the ropes.  Won’t be long now..."  
  
“Yeah…” Bucky said dreamily, his eyes fluttering open but looking past Steve, “Just gotta push a little further, Cap…  I think I spotted a route around the turrets…”  He finished with a flinch and a groan as another shudder passed through his body.  “Hate…. Hate fightin’ in the snow.” He murmured, curling in on Steve, hands gripping at the straps of his uniform. 

When the water was offered, he drank, but his lips remained chapped, and with the amount he was sweating, it seemed as if it was just going straight through him.  Water, fortunately, was a resource that the Hydra guards weren’t being stingy with.   
  
Private Gibbs shuffled uncomfortably around, eyes bouncing between Cap and Bucky and the rest of the cells.  He was scared, that much was obvious, but trying to put on a brave face in front of Captain America himself.  “Lord, there’s people dying…” He murmured nervously as he came to sit next to Cap, proffering the newest tray of food and water, ignorant to just how much that comment probably wasn’t helping in the least.  

Steve shot a hard glance at Gibbs at his lack of tact, but he was too worried about Bucky to lecture.  Coddling wasn’t going to help anybody, anyway.  Sometimes, the truth is hard to hear.  As for Bucky, Steve felt his own heart sink as Bucky’s non-sequiturs seemed to be less his usual snark and bordering on full on delusional.  He soaked a torn piece of fabric in the water and pressed it to his burning forehead; it was room temperature at best but hopefully it would offer him some relief. 

“Maybe I can play dead,” Steve said softly, hopefully just loud enough for Gibbs to hear.  Get them to open the door - if I could just get them to open the damned door..."

Bucky murmured, his quaking subsiding marginally as Steve pressed the cloth to his forehead, turning his face towards Steve’s hands.  His babbling – for better or worse- quieted and he seemed to slip more into an actual sleep.  
  
“Wow, that’s a good idea,” Gibbs whispered a little loudly.  “They’ve been openin’ the gates when they think people are dyin.  They lock up th’ others, but if you could get out, well boy, Captain… we’re as good as saved!”

Steve looked around furtively, then squeezed some water over his own head, patting down his hair to mimic a fever of Bucky’s degree.  He knew himself, and he was already worried that his skin was several degrees higher than it should be.  But maybe he could use that to his advantage.  

“Give me about twenty minutes, then alert the guards,” he told Gibbs, giving Bucky one last supportive squeeze on his shoulder before scooting away, close to the door as possible.  Taking a deep breath he laid himself down on the filthy floor, and closed his eyes; focusing on making his breathing as shallow as he could muster.

To his credit, Gibbs did as instructed.  He paced around the cell, looking worriedly between Steve and Bucky and kept an eye on the circling, armed guards.   
  
As he did, the cool slab of metal under Steve’s face felt surprisingly soothing to his hot skin, and with his eyes closed, the echoing sounds from around the large room almost pounded into Steve’s head.  He could hear the loud thunking of boots on the concrete outside of the cells as the guards paced.  He could hear guttural moans of the other prisoners from their cells, and rumblings of stomachs – both his own gnawing hunger likely thanks to his demanding metabolism, as well as the other prisoners who had been making due on the meager rations they’d been allotted.  Steve’s hearing had been sharp ever since Project Rebirth, but now the cacophony of noises were downright irritating.  
  
The milieu of sounds had almost fallen into a rhythm when Steve finally heard Gibbs shrilly call out “GUARDS!  GUARDS!  HEY GUARDS!  HE’S DEAD!  I THINK HE’S DEAD!  HELP!”  
  
It took a few minutes, but heavy boots began to trod closer to the cell, and Steve heard a metallic jangling sound before one of the guards say, _“Stopp. Es ist zu nah an der Zeit.”_  
  
All of a sudden, an ear-splittingly shrill alarm blared – a noise Steve was intimately familiar with – a warning, a siren… but then, he felt it more than heard it:  A deep, bone-shaking tone blared out through the loudspeakers set into the high ceilings.  The tone was so low, so heavy that it felt like it was physically shaking his very ear-drums.  There were shots of pain echoing from many of the prisoners in the facility.  
  
Steve was used to concealing pain; as a child he did so to avoid pity.  As a soldier, he often had to keep the morale of the troops high.  But the siren was different; he gritted his teeth as the low notes seemed to wash over him like a blanket of lead, feeling his stomach knot up painfully as his blood began to pump through his veins at a pounding, alarming rhythm.  

It was too late for this plan - something was happening; he could feel it in his bones.  The screams from the other cells confirmed it, too.  There was something in this noise.  He clamped his hands over his ears as he sat up, assessing the situation the best he could through the pain.  “Bucky?” he called, rushing back over to him.

Steve wasn’t the only one with his hands clamped over his ears.  Bucky was awake, doubled over with his palms pressed hard against the sides of his head as he gasped, quivering and spluttering.  The sound didn’t stop, it just kept driving, vibrating barely slowed or muffled through their hands.  
“STEVE!” Bucky gasped, eyes wide and terror written clearly over his face.  The brave mask he almost never dropped was gone, and his whole body was flushed red and shaking.  His hands twitched erratically, his muscles were spasming as he clung to the bars.  
  
Private Gibbs had stopped yelling, but looked between Steve and Bucky in confusion, taking a few steps back.  As loud as the sound was, he didn’t seem to be reacting to it.. and for that matter, the guards around the cell were wearing no kind of protective gear.  They just clutched their weapons and took a few steps back.  Some of them wore obscene smiles as they watched the prisoners.

In the other cells, most of the prisoners had either collapsed or doubled over in pain or were gripping the metal bars hard.  They shook, they screamed… and about one man in five just watched on or sympathetically tried to console them.  Despite the pain, which only seemed to be ramping up, his heart rate increasing and his blood boiling, Steve’s super soldier mind flagged the same unaffected men as those who, like Gibbs, hadn’t shown signs of illness.  

Steve’s heart sank in his chest - this wasn’t the Bucky he was used to seeing.  No, this was a Bucky he had seen very few times even in their years together.  It was the face of a scared kid - a young man barely out of his teens who had seen far more death and tragedy than anyone his age ought to.  Steve found out the hard way that this was one of the hardest realities of war: strong, confident, boisterous recruits who in boot camp seemed like Gods Among Men reduced to terrified young people who would probably sell their soul outright for a chance to just be Home.  

“Keep your ears covered, Buck!” he commanded gently, trying to wrench his hands off the bars.  He lead them back to the side of his head and help him there with his own, letting his larger fingers intertwined with them in a small show of comfort.  But now his ears were exposed more, and clenched his teeth so hard he felt his teeth grind together as the sound pounding into him even more.  He knew he was falling into the same black pit; but he would handle that when the time comes.  He was strong - he needed to focus on Bucky…

Gibbs noticed, however, that Steve’s growing paleness and fine sheet of sweat breaking over his skin gave away his cover - he was just as sick as the others.

“What’s wrong with everyone..?” Gibbs spluttered, confused, taking a few steps back.  He swallowed, looking at just how pale Steve had grown, how even this national icon’s muscles were quivering.  

“It hurts…Ca- Steve… please… make it stop..” Bucky whimpered, clutching his hands hard to his head, grateful for Steve’s support, and desperately trying to keep himself from falling apart.  He hated showing weakness… but this was like nothing else.  Not the times he had been captured and beaten.  Not even when he’d taken a gunshot in the heat of battle.  The noise – the pounding pain seemed to be driving into his skull like a hammer and reverberating from deep within.   
  
Suddenly, there was a gurgling scream from another cell just a few down from him as an officer, kneeling over the crumpled form of another soldier was set hurtling back against the bars as the soldier exploded to his feet.   And the… THING that turned to face the officer was hardly recognizable as human.  His face was distorted – no- distorting.  Teeth too large and sharp for his mouth, dribbling with foamy spit. Eyes that were glassy and mad, and a uniform that was giving way to bulging muscle.  He shook his head, hands clamed to distorting ears as he seemed to try to contain himself for a moment before loosening an animal shout and springing on the officer.   
  
And then…. More screams. Some from men staring at the gruesome events in the cell… others witnessing or experiencing something equally horrifying in their own.  
  
Under his hands, Bucky’s muscles were twitching more violently now.  His eyes clamped shut and he clenched his teeth as he rocked, almost in time with the thrumming, pounding base.   
  
Steve’s own head began to pound, the sound overriding even the screams as it felt like sandpaper was scraping under his skin.

Steve had turned at the scream, his eyes widening as he saw the gruesome sight.  He silently prayed what seemed to be happening..wasn’t actually happening.  He steeled himself and whipped his head back around, forcing Bucky’s head up. “Look at me,” he said sternly, “Bucky, just look at me.”  He swallowed and tried to wipe his sweating face on the sleeve of his uniform.  “Hey,” he said, his mind racing - struggling against the maddening pounding in his head, “Hey Bucky, you can’t give up now.  I said I’d take you the Grand Canyon, remember?” he finally got out, hoping his voice didn’t sound as shaky as he sounded in his ears.

Bucky forced his eyes open, and it took them a moment to find and focus on Steve’s.  They were bloodshot, rimmed red and panicky.  He either didn’t notice or was refusing to look at what was going on around them.  “Y… yeah…” He eeked out. “Yeah, you promised.”  He repeated, but then his words devolved into a strangled yelp.  He doubled in on himself again, and Steve saw the fabric of his uniform begin to bulge.  When he looked up again to Steve, his blue irises had grown large, and his gasping breath revealed sharpening teeth.  “Steve…” He eeked out… “Steve it’s in my heaaaaaaarrrrrgh!”  
  
“Oh god… oh god..” Gibbs started to repeat as he backed up against the bars of their cell – staring out at the others.  

More and more of the other prisoners were undergoing their own transformations.  In one cell, two prisoners were in the throes of agony, uniforms tearing away from growing bodies.  In another, a monstrous wolflike monster that had once been a corporal was clenching its head, whimpering, and as if trying to fight against a horrible impulse…. And in the cell next door, a sudden scent assaulted Steve’s nose – fresh blood – as three monstrous wolf creatures tore into and were fighting over the carcass that had moments before been a screaming private.  

This was the end; Steve was sure of it.  He nearly vomited as the scent of blood hit his nose and he felt his hungry stomach churn and awake in a ravenous hunger.  He had to do something - and fast.  He wasn’t going to let Bucky die without trying everything.  “Come on, Buck,” he grunted out between his teeth.  He hoisted himself up on his feet, wincing as a surprising, shooting pain lightninged up his shins.  He quickly pulled Bucky’s blue peacoat off of him, hastily dunking in the remaining water of the cell.

It took every ounce of his power to lean down and scoop Bucky up, throwing him over his shoulder as he stumbled over to the bars, twisting the wet fabric around the bars and began to twist.  He had to try… just one more time.

“HELP ME,” he bellowed at the cowering Gibbs - his voice loud and growly, showing his rapidly expanding canines to the frightened young man.

Bucky groaned loudly as he was moved quickly over Steve’s shoulder, but he clung to him.  He could feel his whole body quivering, punctuated with quick seizure-like jerks.  Ominously, the clutching dull points of his fingers began to dig in with sharp points as Bucky’s breathing grew heavier.  
  
Gibbs spluttered, looking terrified back at Cap – and his mouth, and the acrid smell of urine soon joined the mileu of scents of blood and sweat from around him.  “S… Sir!” He seemed to force himself to say, leaping to attention and following orders.  He rushed to Cap’s side and took hold of the soaked jacket, trying to help him twist.  It wasn’t much, next to Steve’s indomitable strength, but he was trying, and not a weakling at least.

The racket from the cells around them were picking up.  Some were turning faster than others, some cells, like Steve’s and Bucky’s, still had quivering prisoners, but one by one, most undergoing the signs of sickness were turning. Other soldiers were losing the fight against their budding bestial impulses and those that were not affected were being turned on, attacked, and… eaten.  Even the Hydra guards were backing away from the carnage and brutality.   
  
Bucky’s panicked groaning and whimpers started to ebb into a low, guttural _growl_.  

The sweat beaded over his forehead and he twisted, feeling the strain on his arms and the burn in his arm muscles; but it was no use.  The bars were thick and reinforced, and Bucky’s condition was rapidly deteriorating.  “Fuck!” he screamed loudly, kicking at the bars as he snapped in rage - pain and anger seeming to fill his veins.  He put Bucky back on the ground and tried to hold back the tears as he knew it was too late.  

The pain finally overcame him and he doubled over, gripping his stomach as his spin seemed to elongate, splitting the back of his pants and undershirt as hairs began to peak through the chinks in his scalemail armor.  “Bucky…” he growled out as he stumbled forward, interposing himself between him and Gibbs.

Gibbs fell back, horror-striken as his feet slipped out from underneath him and he threw his arms up defensively.  “Please… ohmygod… please don’t kill me!”  He sobbed, losing his composure and looking every bit a scared kid.   
  
Bucky, however, thrashed as he fell, and rounded on the sudden noise.  He seemed to not see Steve for a moment, bloodshot eyes fixed on Gibbs as he lurched forward a step, two, his body bulkier and fur showing through tearing rips in the vibrant red and blue uniform.  Claws tore through his gloves as he stared at Gibbs like a piece of meat.   
  
For a moment, Bucky hesitated, gripping the sides of his skull, and snarling out a “Nnnnnooooo!” But his stomach growled audibly, louder almost than the growls he had been making.  “Don’t… want to… help… meee-yeerrrrrrr”  His body went through another seizing jolt, a long _tail_ tearing free of his waistband and his face jutting out with a sick snap of frothy saliva and blood.  

Steve could barely watch - it was too hard to see his friend in so much pain.  More horrifyingly, he knew the same thing was happening to him, the changes sweeping in faster and faster.  He felt the strain of his boots on his feet, and his pants began to rip at the seems as he grew even bigger.  His jaw arched and words became muffled as the teeth grew and filled his mouth unnaturally.  

“Bucky…don’t…” he groaned out between waves of pain.  He staggered backward, trying to shield the cowering man the best he could.

Bucky seemed to teeter for a pregnant moment, eyes blinking and focusing, strained as nearly nothing was recognizable about his partner any longer – but a brownish wolf creature barely poised on two legs.  There was fear in his eyes, pain, as the still-blue eyes sought Steve’s frantically for a moment before Steve could SEE something snap in them and give way.   
  
He pounced, claws out and teeth bared – not for Steve, but for Gibbs.  He was fast – faster than even Steve had ever seen the dexterous young man before – driven by fury, hunger, and madness.   
  
It almost didn’t seem to matter anymore, almost slipped by unnoticed, but the painful blaring of the tone had dropped away, leaving behind just the sickening sounds of growls and snarls and screams. 

Steve couldn’t even look.  He just closed his eyes in despair and sank, defeated to his knees.  He dropped onto his palms and quit trying to resist; the pain lessened as the fire in his blood continued to wash over him.  He squeezed his eyes shut - vivid memories of Project Rebirth and Dr. Erskine’s machine rolled through his mind - as he continued to feel himself contort and grow.  Several of the scales from his armor fell to the floor with a haunting, chime-like melody amidst the chorus of screams, growls, and cries of pain.  His boots shredded away to give way to his long, lupine feet.  The gloves split at the fingertips as claws burst through; digging into the ground of the cell hard enough he felt it beginning to gouge the metal.  

Despite the physical pain, Steve never felt his mind snap. Not like the others - sure, he was in pain, panicked, scared.  He felt an overwhelming hunger in his belly and a disturbing rage in his gut, but when his body finally began to still from his paroxysm, he was able to stand upon his new paws and looked hesitantly around his surroundings.

Steve must have been one of the last to finally succumb to the changes, as all of the cells around him were full of other lupine creatures.  While Steve couldn’t see himself – he _knew_ that the creatures around him – huge, hulking wolflike creatures – were indicative of what he, too, had become.  Anyone who hadn’t changed had been torn apart in their cells, and most of the lupine creatures had circled the bodies and were feasting.  Steve’s on stomach gave an almost sickening churn as the blood around him filled his nose and smelled _appetizing_.   
  
However, the creatures didn’t fight amongst themselves – not really.  A few of the cells had two of the wolves squaring off and snapping at each other over what was left of a third, unchanged, body – but their body postures, the aggression was tempered more with a dominance test than showing signs of true bloodthirstiness.

Anywhere a Hydra guard was anywhere close to a cell, the creatures had flocked to the sides, furry arms reaching and tearing out towards them.  And, if Steve listened carefully, he could hear a slight groan of the metal where they were raging against the bars.

But as Steve continued to look, his eyes fell on what was left of his friend – a hulking, brown-pelted wolf, crouched over most of Gibbs – gulping and tearing at his flesh with ravenous hunger.  Scraps of his old costume still clung to him in some kind of mockery of the icon he had been.  

Steve tried to call out to Bucky, to beg him to stop - but all that came out was a bark-like roar.  His hands - paws? - reached up and felt his extended face with dismay, as he stumbled back a bit, disoriented from a sudden assault of new smells and sounds.  

Wrenching his eyes off the sight of who was once his friend, Steve flung himself at the bars in one last-ditch effort to escape his certain undoing.  He grasped two of them between his massive paws, feeling a swell of power inside him like he had never felt before.  Steeling his will, he screwed back his face into a growl and howled as he pulled at the bars with the full press of his enhanced (even for a super-soldier) strength.  

The sound of the thick iron buckling under Steve’s effort sent a high-pitched, wincing sound that echoed down the hall.

The Hydra agents, who had been keeping back, many of whom had been watching the proceedings with sadistic glee, suddenly turned, faces going slack in disbelief.   
  
“Fuck.”  One of them spluttered, and set off at a run while the others readied the weapons they had on hand.   
  
Several of the other former soldiers turned their attention towards the sound, ears pricking and snapping barks towards Steve.   
  
Even Bucky turned, lifting his blood-soaked muzzle away from his kill, eyes shining under the artificial lights towards the widening gap in the bars.  

Steve could feel the eyes on him and it seemed to fuel his strength even more.  Letting out a roar that echoed down the halls and beyond as he finally felt the thick metal buckle under his stress, leaving a gaping hole in the containment cell.  

He threw the remnants of the bars down on the ground and looked over to Bucky, pleading him with his eyes.  He wiggled through the hole and into the hallway, saliva dripping from his maw as his wolfish, but still clear-blue eyes, leveled on the guards.

The guards had collected into a cluster for support near the far end of the facility and were moving – slowly – as a group towards Steve.  As soon as he was free – those with rifles opened fire, but the shots were erratic, panicked.  A few luckier ones pinged off of pieces of his scale mail and another hit a wolf in a nearby cage.  The shot, however, was glancing, and it seemed to only serve to piss the creature off more as it howled in pain and anger.  A guard panicked, and broke ranks, running for a staircase near the side of the large warehouse like facility that led up to the catwalks above.   
  
Another chime rang out, this one certainly audible even to human ears – and one Steve was intimately familiar with – a German alarm tone.  
  
Without hesitation, Bucky was on his heels.  He was still slighter in comparison to Steve’s even greater bulk, and slipped through the bars.  But he didn’t pause once loose – he was running – on all fours – straight for the cluster of guards.   
  
Another guard turned tail, chasing after the first one that fled. 

All around him, the other wolves were at their bars, snapping and snarling, testing their cages to try to escape now that they saw two of their own loose. 

Steve flexed his paws, trying to access the situation.  What should he do?  Let the others free?  They were mere victims like himself, trapped in a HYDRA facility.  By leaving them here, he was sure he was sentencing them to die.  But on the other hand... 

  
…they obviously weren’t in their right minds.  Why was he able to control his hunger while the other ones seemed desperate to kill anything human in sight.  At a quick glance it looked like there were no non-fevered survivors.  But the alarm meant that more Hydra soldier were on their way.  

Taking a deep breath and growling under his breath, Steve ran - finding himself, like Bucky, quick to move on all fours, towards the control panel.

The control panel was set into a large unit up on the catwalk overlooking the open floor full of cages.  It was easily spotted from down on the ground, especially as Steve’s eyes followed the fleeing Hydra guards as they clambered loudly past it – their boots ringing out on the metal scaffolding above.  

Steve had been fast since Project Rebirth, but running on all fours sent him hurtling through the facility in leaps and bounds.  The metal staircase also proved no problem, barely needing to use the stairs at all between the landings.  
  
The large control panel was labeled in German, but Steve had picked up enough of it over the years in the war to be able to make out buttons labeled cage release, disengage from base, and even switches and dials to unlock and lift the large bay doors that led outside.   
  
From the catwalk, however, Steve could see doors leading elsewhere into the facility; the second of the guards banging through one of them as he fled for his life.  
  
Meawhile, Bucky had made it across the facility, dodging and weaving, to the battalion of guards.  From his vantage, Steve could see a few bloody paths through his fur where a shot or two had grazed him.  But if it bothered him, he didn’t show any signs of it.  He could hear and smell the acrid electric scent as the guards near the back powered on their stun batons.  

Steve gave a huff on indecisiveness before pounding his paws on the panel - unlocking the pens and opening the main gates to the facility.  If he was releasing monsters it would still be on Hydra’s head.  They did this, and they deserved to reap the consequences.  He would figure this out, find a way to save them.  But if he left them in the cages they would certainly die.  

As the cages began to lift, Steve couldn’t resist the instinct to raise his head and howl - a commanding howl - announcing their freedom.  He tried to express, the best his addled mind could at the time - to use their chance of escape wisely.

In a flood, the wolf creatures poured out of their cages and set upon the remaining guards on a chorus of growls and celebratory howls.  Most of them lingered to tear into their former captors, while a few ran past, seeking the freedom of the late afternoon beyond the bay doors.   
  
Meanwhile, alarms continued to blare, and with his keen hearing, Steve could hear over the racket noises and shouts and boots coming from deeper in the facility.  

Steve wasn’t willing to leave until he had two things; Bucky and his shield.  His eyes scanned the chaos around him until he spotted (smelled?) Bucky and made his way towards him.  He didn’t specially attack any of the guards unless they engaged him directly.  

He jumped in front of Bucky on all fours, tail up, ears pointed, and teeth bared.  He barked his command to follow, then went further into the facility, looking for storage lockers or the like.

Even among the mass of fur and bodies, Steve could pick Bucky out easily.  More than just the remnants of his uniform, and even with his sense of smell only just expanded to encompass so much information – he _knew_ Bucky’s scent.  Something seemed to click in Bucky’s eyes as Steve postured in front of him, recognizing and submitting to the alpha;  his ears and tail lowered and he turned away from the carnage.  And as Steve turned to head into the facility, Bucky followed.  
  
Alarms clanged and red lights flashed down the corridors as they ran.  A number of doors were set into the hallways with glass windows.  Most seemed to contain filing cabinets, strange machinery and scientific apparatus.   
  
One door reeked of death before they even got close.  A glance in the window showed bodies lay out, butterflied, on tables, glass jars lining shelves in the room with organs, and one even seemed to hold a furry, paw-like hand.   
  
A door opened further down the hallway and a few guards with guns ran out, shouting and pointing their weapons at Steve and Bucky.  With a snarl, Bucky flew past Steve and ran for the Hydra soldiers.  
  
Steve tried to roar a warning at them, but it was to avail.  The bullets were flying before Bucky even reached them.  Steve followed him into the fray; grabbing the men with his massive arms and hurling them out his way.  He snatched away their guns and pounded their heads into the ground.  The smell of blood made his aching stomach churn, but he would not succumb; not now, not in front of Bucky.

When they were cleared away, he went into the room they were blocking to explore.  
  
As they closed the distance, the guards were too caught off guard by the fact that there were two of the turned POWs right _there_ than to actually make any shots that hit before Steve and Bucky were on them.  

Even following Steve’s lead, the lure of the fray was too much for Bucky to hold back.  Unlike Steve, he ripped into them – using teeth and claws and going for the throat.   
  
And as Steve moved past the doorway to investigate, Bucky hung back, tearing out chunks and gobbling them down ravenously.   
  
The room behind them was what Steve was looking for – a large storage room piled high with confiscated weapons, US military backpacks, and – laid out like a prize possession on the middle of the table in the center of the room – Captain America’s shield.  

Steve immediately ran into the room and began to throw several of the backpacks onto his arms; awkwardly so as his shoulders were now far too wide to wear them properly.  But he knew he might need the supplies inside.  When he had enough to feel he wasn’t encumbered, he grabbed his shield, by instinct sliding his arm in.  

A few paces out the door, however, and Steve remembered he could move much fasted on all fours.  With a grunt of disappointment and embarrassment, he sighed a small breath of relief when the magnetic fasteners on the back of his uniform still held tight.

Shield stowed, Steve went back to Bucky, once again imposing himself between his former partner and his victim, commanding him to follow.

Bucky’s ears flattened, hackles raised as he snarled, snapping defiantly as Steve interposed himself between him and his meal.  But he didn’t attack back, and with no more living guards, he deferred to the alpha’s control of the food.  As Steve turned and led the way back out, he paused, taking a few more gulping mouthfuls before setting off again on his heels.  

Shield acquired, and Bucky behind him, Steve was only concerned with escaping the facility now.  His stomach was painful it was so hungry, but Steve’s iron will shone through - he refused to use his teeth or claws on the guards as they made their way to freedom.

They encountered no more resistance as they fled the facility as they just backtracked back out the way they came.  By the time they had made it back to the open bay doors, any guards had already been finished off and devoured by the escaped POWs-turned-wolves, and only a few of the lupine prisoners were still downstairs tearing at the last remains.   
  
It was dusk as they made their way out into the open air – natural scents of trees and earth and plants seemed a welcome change from the foul conditions housing hundreds of prisoners in a concrete and metal building.   A wide dirt road with deep tire treads ran directly out of the facility towards the West, and trees – different from the ones Steve was used to seeing in France and England and parts of Germany clustered around the road.   
  
He could still smell the lingering scents of the other wolves – between the scent trails and mad clusters of pawprints fleeing the facility, it looked like most of them had scattered into small groups and fled in all directions, most of them sticking to the woods.  

Steve stood up on his hind legs, surveying the land.  His eyes lingered on the road, then over towards the woods.  He had to find help…somehow.  They would stick to the road for now.  Back on all fours, he broke out in a dead run, checking to make sure Bucky was following.  He hated how…GOOD he felt finally being able to run at a full throttle.  The wind whipped through his fur and it wasn’t long before he was able to differentiate the assault on his nose as distinct different smells that seemed to make an image in some part of his imagination. 

Though he was following the road, he kept himself and Bucky off the shoulder in the treeline.  After a few miles, a new scent hit on his nose and he could no longer hold back.  

He looked to Bucky, indicating him to follow, as he went further up into a break in the trees.  A small farmhouse in the distance had smoke trailing out of a chimney, and closer to their location a cluster of sleeping sheep huddled together for warmth.

Bucky was close on his heels through the run, his long tongue lolling out of his mouth as they did, almost keeping pace with Steve.  As they grew closer to the farm, his ears pricked and saliva pooled in his mouth as the smell of food reached his nose as well.   
  
He didn’t wait for permission or any indication as he sprang after the nearest sheep, tearing into it and swallowing down mouthfuls of flesh as the sheep bleated fearfully. 

Steve frowned, but joined him, quickly slaughtering another sheep before they could flee any closer to the house.  He took its neck first; making sure the beast was quiet and still before he finally gave into his hunger.  He had stripped the beast to nearly bare-bones in the matter of an hour, pulling gigantic chucks of meat at a time and literally wolfing them down.  

After the slaughter, he hated to admit he felt even better and more clear-headed.  He looked over to Bucky, then back to the woods.

Bucky had paused in his meal by the time Steve was finished, swaying a bit on his feet.  He was breathing hard, muscles twitching as finally, his legs gave out from under him and he collapsed, eyes slipping closed.  Before his eyes, Steve could see the fur retreating, his form growing slighter….  
  
He, himself, felt immensely better – although it was hard to tell if it was only from the meal. His heart seemed to finally slow from its racing pace, his muscles felt looser, as if a tension he hadn’t even been aware of was loosening its grip on him. 

Steve looked around, knowing he needed to get back into the woods.  Though it was harder to walk, he managed to scoop Bucky into his arms and disappeared back into the treeline.  He raised his nose to the wind and caught the scent of water, following it to a small stream that carved its way through the forest.  He set Bucky down gently, pulling a rag of torn cloth from his clothes and dipped into the cool stream, gently wiping the blood that was still covering his face.

By the time they reached the waterline, the transformation had completed its reversal.  Bucky was once again human, his face slack.  Bucky’s uniform was in tatters, blood soaking through the edges of the cloth and splattering all over his skin, concentrating over his face, chest, and hands.   
  
Even as Steve wiped at his face, he didn’t stir or so much as groan, but his chest continued to rise and fall evenly with the cadence of a deep sleep.  

Steve took his time, confused why he also hadn’t changed back.  He didn’t dwell on it, of course, just patiently bathed Bucky - disturbed by how small he felt in his massive arms.  When he was done, he took his turn in the creek; using his paws to run the water through his thick fur and wipe the remains of mutton and wool from himself.  Without even thinking about it, he shook off the remaining water to dry off, nearly dying of embarrassment and happy Bucky was asleep.  He scooped him back up, and found a reclusive little hideaway in a copse of trees.  He wrapped around his partner protectively, keeping him warm as the night continued on.  With a full belly and the steady sound of Bucky’s breathing in his ear, he soon fell asleep.

*

It was the following morning by the time consciousness slowly began to return to Bucky along with the distant rumbling of a heavy vehicle along the road at least a few hundred yards away.  He groaned, shifting as disorientation clouded his mind momentarily.  His body felt heavy, sluggish, but as he moved a brush of something soft tickled his skin and his eyes cracked open to see….  
  
“FUCK!” Sobriety hit Bucky like a sledgehammer as he sat up suddenly, staring in horror at the wolf-creature still donned in Cap’s trackings curled up around him.  He back-scooted, eyes panicked as pieces of memories assaulted him, heart racing. 

Steve was on his paws immediately, his tail up and teeth ready to attack any intruders - but as soon as he realize it was Bucky he backed off, releasing his snarl and sitting down.  Even sitting he was nearly eye-level with the younger man, and Bucky couldn’t help but notice even as a goddamn WOLF he was still... beautiful.  His hulking form was covered with silky, golden fur, and his eyes were a piercing sky blue that beamed intensely out of the black sclera of his eyes.  He looked less like a monster in this posture, and more like some kind of regal fantasy mount; including the tattered (but still mostly intact) scale mail shirt and blue cowl that stretched over his face.  
  
Bucky had been on his feet, prepared to attack, to run at the first sign of aggression, his thoughts and feelings already a chaotic mess – and thinking his partner – his best friend had become a monster and was about to kill him was almost more than he could deal with.  But seeing him almost immediately settle down, backing away, Bucky hesitated, his gasping breath easing marginally as he lifted his hands warily.  
  
“Is that… Is that really you, Steve?” He said, swallowing thickly around a knot in his throat. 

Steve opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.  Instead he just leaned slowly forward, pressing his cold wet nose against the palm of Bucky’s tattered glove submissively.

“Christ….” Bucky wavered, hand shaking for a moment in place before he withdrew it quickly, running it through his own hair.  He set his jaw, but looked like he was only barely holding back frantic tears.   
  
“What did they do to  y-…” He stopped mid sentence, eyes widening.  “No… no Fuck…. To _us_.  I… oh my god… It really happened…” He sank to his knees as fragments of memories rushed back.  Pain, fur.  Claws, and lots and lots of blood and screaming.  “Oh my god… I killed him…” 

Steve opened his mouth again, grunting in frustration.  He shook his head and took a deep breath, trying to focus on his thoughts and the words he wanted to say.  After a moment, he yelped in surprised, and bent over on himself, wrapping his large arms around himself as his form finally started to shrink away.    The fur retreated, his giant form finally shrinking down to his ‘normal’ size, the remnants of his tattered clothing hanging loosely off his body in tatters as he shifted back into his human form.

He was breathing hard at the end, his own eyes reflecting surprise and a mix of panic and relief.  “Bucky?” he choked out, looking back up at him.  “Oh thank God…"

“Steve??” Bucky eked as soon as he heard his friend’s voice once again, looking up, shoulders still shaking in shock.  “You… You’re back… My God… Steve… what happened?  What happened to us?!  What did they do?  How did you- my head… it was in my head I was … it was like I went away somewhere and there was this… this THING in me… How did you…” His words tumbled from his mouth in a jumble of confusion.  

Steve got unsteadily to his feet, walking forward and clamped his big, strong hands on his shoulders.  “Whatever they injected us with, Bucky.  It must have been…”  he shook his head.  “One of the rooms had test subjects… dead animals, dead people.  God… how long have they been planning this?”

Bucky’s eyes were red and watery as he shook his head. “All those people…” he murmured hollowly.  “The beach… it was a disaster… and then that nightmare…”  He took a quavering breath, putting a hand down on top of one of Steve’s for reassurance.  “Poor Private Gibbs…” Bucky murmured and then was stricken with a sudden realization and a look of abject horror.  He stumbled away from Steve, heading towards the river, but didn’t quite make it.  He fell to his knees, violently vomiting red.  

Steve followed him, dropping to his knees beside him and putting a supportive hand on his back and rubbing.  “Bucky…” he choked up, his voice shaking.  “Bucky it wasn’t your fault,” he said, swallowing back the repulsion in his voice.

Bucky wiped violently at his mouth with the back of his hands, looking at the red smear on the ground in horror.  He jerked back from Steve’s touch with a shake of his head.  “Steve… I… I fucking _ate_ him.”  

“You didn’t have control of yourself, Bucky…” he said, unsure if he was trying to convince Bucky or himself.

A deep grimace was set onto Bucky’s face as he finally looked back to Steve. “But… but _you_ did.  You… fuck… you got us out of there somehow.  Why didn’t you… how did you not give in?”  His voice was weak, ashamed. 

“I don’t know,” Steve answered honestly, sitting down beside Bucky and rubbing his face with what was left of his gloves.   “I was able to break the bars - no one else could.  Maybe… maybe because of the serum..?"

Bucky swallowed, staring down at the ground, his jaw clenching and unclenching.  “… Maybe.”  He wasn’t sure if that made it worse or better.  He let silence hang in the air for a few moments, wiping again at his mouth and squeezing his eyes closed as he tried to steady his breathing.  
  
Finally, “D’you think it’s over…?” He ventured hesitantly. 

“Well, the sirens seemed to trigger it,” he said, thinking back.  “And we escaped the facility.  Once we get back to base we can assemble a team to go back - figure out what they did.  Make sure they can’t… trigger it again.”  
  
Bucky swallowed thickly, nodding quietly.  “Yeah…” he finally said softly, but didn’t lift his eyes from the ground or make any effort to get up.   
  
Steve didn’t know what to say.  He would be lying to say he wasn’t incredibly disturbed by what had happened.  By what Bucky did… But he knew in his heart Bucky couldn’t help himself.  He would… never.  “C’mon, kid,” he forced out after a moment, standing up.  “We need to figure out where we are. Figure out an extraction point."

Recently, Bucky had been rankled by the ‘kid’ moniker – protesting most times Steve used it.  This time, a smile ghosted almost imperceptivity across his lips – just for a moment, though the trauma still lingered behind his eyes.   

 He hefted himself up, using a tree for support to get his feet underneath him, taking a minute to get his balance before looking to Steve.  He set his jaw, and nodded.  “Lead the way, Cap.”

Steve kept following the road, keeping back behind the treeline, still, just in case.  Occasionally, the rumble of a heavy vehicle passed by as they traveled – glimpses revealed German-made troop transports.  But they never spotted the duo as they kept off the roads.  The next night came and went uneventfully, much to Steve’s relief.  He tried to stay positive with Bucky, but he was notorious at comforting someone who had been through such a traumatic experience.  “Just when you think you’ve seen the worst of it,” he attempted, “War just keeps getting worse.”  He reached over and squeezed his shoulder.  “You’re a trooper, though, Bucky."

Usually chatty, Bucky had mostly kept quiet during the walk, lost in thoughts.  Bucky gave a tight-lipped nod at the squeeze.  He’d seen horrors since the war began: Hydra experimentations… concentration camps that unsettled him to the root of his soul… but nothing had shaken Bucky this badly – having participated himself in the atrocities.   
  
“That’s why they picked me, I guess.” He said with an attempt at a smile.  “I… I’m just glad to have you, Steve.  If it wasn’t for you…” He trailed off, shaking his head.  “You’re the best of any of us.”

Steve shook his head.  “Nah,” he said, looking over to him.  “You’re just as good as me, I just have the serum,” he tried to comfort.  “I’ve told you that before.  And I believe it.” 

It wasn’t a lie; Steve really wasn’t any more brave or courageous than at least a few other dozen soldiers he had met, at least he didn’t think so.  If someone like Bucky had been picked for Project Rebirth, he was certain he would have done just as well. 

Bucky huffed; they’d had this discussion before and Steve would never hear anything contradictory.  Bucky didn’t believe it – not completely, but he’d come to at least recognize his value to the duo.  There were just some things that Captain America shouldn’t do.  Espionage, dirty tactics, clearing out sentries and opening doors for the glorious charge.  He was good at what he did.  But it curdled in his stomach that the darker path had led him to where he was now.

A small village came into view up the road, and Steve stopped, contemplating, looking at the sky.  “I don’t know how big that town is; I don’t want to be caught in there at night,” he said, looking back at Bucky.  “Might as well camp out here.”  
  
He looked up, nodding at the small town. “We’re still behind enemy lines, I’m willin’ ta bet.  With how long we took a ride in their trucks at least.  Probably not the safest thing going in there.  Even if it is full of civilians, I’d be surprised if there weren’t at least a few Hydra agents in there among the rest...  Least it’s still summertime.  Ain’t so bad camping out.”

“Would be better with a sleeping roll,” he said with a smirk, poking around the woods for a piece of ground that didn’t look too bumpy.  There was an old tree with big, winding roots that looked pretty good a few meters off the road, and Steve padded it down with his boots.  Thankfully the backpacks he had lifted from the encampment had some basic supplies:  a lantern and some rations for dinner.  “Think we need a fire?” he asked.

“Nah,” Bucky responded with a wave. “Would draw too much attention, and it ain’t that cold out.  Sides, you’re like a fuckin’ furnace, you know that Rogers?”  He flopped down heavily onto the dirt Steve had cleared out.  He stretched his arms behind his head and laid his head against one of the knotted roots. “Hell, this’ll be more comfy than half the encampments we’ve made.” 

Steve gave him a smile and settled down between Bucky and the root of the tree, taking up nearly all the room so Bucky would have to lean, partially, on his partner.  This wasn’t the first time they’ve camped in close-quarters (there was a reason Bucky knew how hot he got when he slept), but he also knew his shoulder would be more comfortable than the tree, and whether he would admit it or not, Steve was pretty sure Bucky would need the reassurance that he wasn’t afraid of him.

Settling back, he pulled a few rations from the pack and offered him one.

There was a bit of tension in Bucky’s shoulders that gradually eased as Steve scooted in closer.  His eyes flicked around their little makeshift campsite before finally making eye contact with Steve and giving him a small, appreciative smile as he took one of the packs of rations.  
“Thanks,” He murmured, bumping Steve’s shoulder with his, continuing to ignore the elephant in the room.  
  
Instead, he tore into the rations, using his fingers to scoop up a dallop of canned tuna.  

Steve ate as well, watching the sky get darker as twilight began to settle in.  “How are you feeling…” he edged, glancing over to him.

Bucky had set the empty tins and boxes aside, a furrow settling between his brows as he shifted against Steve’s shoulder, seeming to be having trouble getting comfortable.  He shrugged a shoulder.  “Could be better, I’ll be honest.”  He said, trying to let it come across as dismissive, but his stomach was doing flips, and the evening felt warmer than the day had…  
  
“You…?”

Steve actually had to think about it for a second - he had certainly felt ‘off’ since the alarm started to go off in the Hydra base, but he wasn’t sure he felt any different since he got back to ‘normal.’  “I think I’m okay,” he said, letting one of his arms fall across Bucky’s shoulders, pulling him a little closer.  “You’ll probably feel better after a good night’s rest,” he said absently.

“Yeah, Yeah I’m sure you’re right, Cap.” Bucky flashed him a trademark smile, touched with a hint of a wince.  He shuffled a bit in his seat again, his head bumping against Steve’s shoulders a few times as he tried to find a comfortable position.   
  
But he just couldn’t get comfortable.  Every few moments he’d toss over or scratch an itch.  And the night was feeling stiflingly warm, sweat beginning to bead over his forehead and his stomach clenched.   
  
“I dunno if that tuna was still good,” He grumbled.  “That crap’s supposed to be good for _years_.”  

Steve frowned in concern.  “Let’s get some water in you,” he said, rolling over to grab the canteen, but much to his dismay, a sudden burst of pain lightninged through his side as he did, and he visibly winced, dropping the metal container and spilling its contents.  

“Damn it,” he cursed, chasing after it.

Steve heard it first – Bucky’s sudden exclamation of surprise and pain as he crumpled forward, arms clutched around his middle.  His body began to shake and quiver, his skin quickly covering with a sheen of sweat.   
“No..” He whimpered, “No no no no no…” he rolled to his knees, staring at his hands in horror as nails began to lengthen and sharpen.  “Steve!  HELP!” He screamed, strangled. 

Steve abandoned the canteen, his eyes wide with worry.  “Bucky, no!” he cried, clamping his hands on either side of his shoulders, trying to still his shaking.  But it was no use, even as he did his best to calm Bucky, he felt his own body holding back quakes of its own - sweat beading up on his forehead at an alarming rate.  Another wave of pain and Steve’s spine straightened up with a jolt, throwing his head back and staring at the sky.  His eyes seemed to focus in immediately on the bright full moon; boring into his soul.

“Make it stop!  No, please… not agai-rrrrrrgh!” Bucky’s body convulsed; gaps in his already torn uniform stretching open again as muscles bulged and fur filled the openings.  
  
He dug his growing claws into the earth, looking for some kind of anchor to fight against the lancing pain of cracking bones and, worse, the needling he could already feel on his consciousness.  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying so hard to focus his thoughts to rein back the monstrous changes and urges – but it only seemed to serve to make the transition more painful as his muscles tightened and limbs shook at the effort.  

Steve seemed trapped by the moon luminous presence in the sky - it wasn’t until Bucky’s screams that he was able to wrench his gaze away.  When looked back into Bucky’s face, Steve’s teeth were already protruding through his lips, which were rapidly burning black.  His body was shaking, through he didn’t scream.  

“Bucky!” he commanded, the best he could.  “Bucky look at me.  You’ve got this.  It’s okay,” he sputtered out.  “Don’t fight it - just… just clear your mind.  Remember who you are..."

Bucky’s eyes snapped open at Steve’s command, head whipping towards him.  His blue eyes were bloodshot, tears running down his face.  But as Steve watched, his gritted teeth sharpened and the blue of his eyes became rimmed in black.   
  
“Stevvv…” he heaved in a husky, deepening voice before his chest snapped with a wet sound, barreling outwards, his slurred words ending in a yelping shout.  
  
He drew in a ragged breath, trying to do what Steve said, loosening his limbs, which sent the changes surging through them more rapidly, but marginally less painfully.  Instead, he focused his thoughts.  Bucky… Bucky.. I’m _Bucky_ … But still, it felt as if claws were tearing at his mind as well as his body, as Steve watched fur cover his partner’s exposed skin, a tail sliding out through the already torn hole in his breeches.  His hands and feet contorted into paws and finally, his face protruded out into a long, canine muzzle.  

“Just….remember…” he kept saying, as his own body was contorting at an alarming rate.  He quaked, but he kept his hands - expanding into paws - stayed on Bucky’s shoulders, his eyes pleading with him.   It was getting harder and harder to speak, his mouth full of teeth and an enlarging, protruding jaw.  “We… we can go get…a deer…” he dropped his hands off Bucky, clutching at his stomach as the hunger swept over him.  “Or more sheep… Bucky..."

This time, when Bucky’s head snapped back to Steve, there was no sign of humanity left in his features – only a brief, pleading look in his eyes before he squeezed them shut, whipping his head back and forth with a guttural snarl.   
  
When his eyes slid open again, they were crazed, his lips curled back to reveal long, sickled canines, mouth dripping with saliva.  

“Noooooooo….” Steve yelled, though it turned into a long, strangled howl as the rest of the changes washed over him.  His golden fur sprouted over his body, a tail splitting out and the rest of this face jutting out into a muzzle.

Bucky tossed his head back, chorusing in with his own howl, his head dropping as the note wavered out.  His ears perked, twitching, catching the sounds of activity in the nearby village.  Without any hesitation, he sprang to action, four paws carrying him swiftly in the direction of the town.

 _-Noooo!-_ Steve pleaded, his head dropping in defeat as Bucky ran off towards the village.  _-Don’t DO THIS!-_   He shook out his fur and chased after him, nipping at his heel.  He barked furiously at him, commanding him to stop.

This time, Bucky didn’t slow in his run, driven by hunger and madness in his blood.  He turned his head to snap and snarl at Steve as he nipped at his ankles, but pushed himself, running faster, and the village was rapidly growing larger before them.  
  
A few people were still out in the streets – far enough from the front to not have to worry about bombs or stray shellings.  Steve could smell their anxiety before they even came within their sight – their howls so close to the village was enough to set them on edge.  His sharp ears could hear them quietly murmuring to each other in some Slavic or Uralic language.  
  
Steve focused his energy and sped up; doing his best to get out in from of Bucky.  He felt his muscles surge with power as he raced up ahead, putting himself between Bucky and the approaching townspeople.

He barreled down into the main road, standing up on his rear legs and let out a fearsome howl - purposely hoping they would flee into their homes.

Screams of “ _Vérfarkas!_ ” filled the square at the sudden appearance of the monstrous wolf, and Steve achieved exactly what he hoped to achieve: Panic.  Deep in Eastern Europe, folktales and legends still thrived, and the people turned and ran.   
  
It was chaos, everyone running as quickly as they could, scattering towards their homes, slamming doors.  
  
But even having beaten Bucky to the village, it didn’t stop him from tearing down the street – and springing upon a young woman who was running in his general direction, away from Steve.  His teeth caught her by the throat, and took her to the ground.  
  
A fresh chorus of screams caught Steve’s ears as witnesses fled faster.

_-No!!-_

Steve dropped to his fours and pounced on Bucky, grabbing as much as him he could with his large claws and yanking him back off the woman.

Bucky was torn from her roughly with a snap and a snarl.  But for the woman, it was too late – her back was arched at an unnatural angle, and blood poured from a huge tear in her neck.   
  
Bucky was always nimble, but now even more so as he rolled to his feet.  He snapped and growled at the larger wolf, having interposed himself between him and his prey, snapping his objection before turning, racing towards a nearby home.

Steve looked dismayed at the woman - there was no point trying to save her now.  The small pause, however, gave Bucky a head start to the nearby home. _\- No no no no no no no…. -_ He broke out after Bucky again, trying to catch him before he busted through the door.

But right before he caught up to him - a thundering crack rang out in the air, and Steve arched his back in pain as he felt shotgun pellets spray over his back.

The gunshot stung.  Badly.  But the fragments didn’t seem to bite quite as deeply as they should have.  Additionally, Steve was familiar with the tingling feeling indicative of his enhanced healing, but now, almost immediately after the slam of the shrapnel-shot into his back, it was followed by the tingling knitting sensation.  

But it still hurt, and still took time, and while Steve was distracted, he watched as Bucky launched himself – not at the door – but through the wood-shuttered window of the small home.  The wood splintered to pieces as Bucky barreled through with his increased mass and musculature.  A moment later, a shrill pair of screams pierced his ears.   
  
Meanwhile, the brave villager was fumbling with two more shells.  Steve, even from his distance, could hear the poor man’s heart hammering in his chest, and smell other people in the home he was standing in front of. 

Steve roared at the man; he shouldn’t be concerned - the wounds of some simple shotgun spray would be healed within the hour - but something snapped inside him and he saw red.  Turning his back on Bucky, Steve launched from his standing position and leapt right into the man, falling him to the ground in a simple pounce.  Saliva dripping from his mouth, Steve opened his maw and roared right into his face, wrenching the gun out his hand and breaking it clean in half before discarding it to the side.

The man’s brave façade crumbled into a blubbering, terrified mess.  The smell of urine filled Steve’s nose as he brought his hands up to defend his face.  Words tumbled from his mouth in a language Steve didn’t know, but the tone transcended language barriers. Pleads.  Prayers.  

More screams filtered through Steve’s rage – the shrill piercing scream of a child – from the same home that Bucky had leapt into.  

Steve’s head jerked up at the scream.  He had no intentions of killing the man, even though his stomach lurched with hunger inside him.  But he had accomplished his goal; he left the cowering man and ran into the house Bucky had run into, calling for him in yelp-like howl.

Following Bucky’s path through the broken window, Steve was immediately assaulted with a grizzly scene: a man and a woman torn apart in their bed.  A trail of blood led out through a door ripped off of its hinges.  Worse still, by the time he was in the house, it was silent except for a sickening crunching sound.  

_-Bucky!-_ he called (or as close as he could in his altered state).  He followed the blood, looking for the creature that used to be his partner.

It wasn’t hard to find him.  The home was small, and he had only gone around a small corner to what was obviously a child’s bedroom.  He was crouched on a small bed, bent over and eating.  His head whipped around as Steve entered the room, ears back and lips pulled back in a blood-stained defensive snarl.   
  
_-Bucky, No!-_ He lamented.  _-No, how could you..._ -  Steve’s heart fell into his stomach as he saw the gruesome scene.  He sank onto all fours, his ears and tail down in despair.  The smell was making him both hungry and disgustingly nauseous, and turned his head, ashamed.

Bucky’s ferocious snarl trailed off to a low rumbling growl when the perceived challenge to his meal backed down.  He turned his head back to finish eating, wolfing down the remains in large gulps.  It didn’t take very long.   
  
His ears twitched and he turned, hopping down off of the bed before raising his nose to sniff at the air.  Steve could read his posture instinctively – hackles raised, deliberate paces, twitching ears – he was on the prowl again. 

Steve couldn’t allow anymore deaths.  The moment he started to prowl again, Steve’s hackles raised and he interposed himself in front of him, towering over him.  He ears and tail were perked, and his eyes narrowed and bored into his as he bared his teeth.  _-No more, Bucky!-_ he commanded.  _-You’ve done enough!-_

Bucky coiled in on himself, back arching and tail tucking – but everything about his posture – from his bared teeth to flattened ears spoke of a defensive aggression.  He snapped back at the large alpha, _-Hunger-._ He seemed to emote with his snaps.  _–People.  Kill._ -  His eyes were crazed, “words” broken even through the lupine methods of communication that seemed to come naturally to the pair of them.  
  
With a snap, he turned his back, kicking off with his back feet to dive towards the shuttered window in the child’s bedroom that led back out to the streets.  

Steve felt the anger swell at his defiance.  _-No!-_ he called after him, following him and quickly catching up to him.  He pounced on Bucky, tumbling him into the dirt of the street.  _-No, you’ve don’t enough!-_ he commanded to him through growls and barks.  _-There are horses, sheep.  CONTROL YOURSELF, Bucky!-_

 _-No!-_ The brown wolf snarled, flailing and snapping a quick series of defensive bites, trying to wriggle his way out from underneath the larger one. 

Steve refused to give up, holding him down with his massive paws.  Bucky’s teeth got mostly fur, but Steve could feel some of them landing, sending sparks of rage through him with the pain.  He slammed Bucky onto the ground, hard, staying on top go him.  -Yes, Bucky!  You’re better than this!-

Fury and madness warred behind Bucky’s blue eyes before Steve caught a scent of something new: for just a half-moment, there was hesitation in Bucky’s eyes, _panic… desperation_. – _No!  Hungry!  So Hungry! STOP ME!-_ He snapped, surging forward to sink his teeth into Steve’s shoulder.  

Steve stopped his fighting when Bucky’s demeanor changed.  It was so odd - that Steve could understand Bucky even though they weren’t using words.  It was a combination of body posture, eye gaze, smells, sounds, and hormones - all forming a picture in Steve’s mind; he could feel for a moment exactly how scared and desperate Bucky was.  He could actually see it - Bucky WAS in there… _somewhere_.

 _-Bucky….-_ he pleaded. _-Bucky, please stop this, I know you’re -_ but it was then that Bucky’d teeth sank into his shoulder - a deep, powerful bite that would have rendered a mortal man’s arm clean from his body.  Red rage filled Steve’s vision again and he slammed Bucky back into the ground and Steve raked his massive claws across his face.

The desperation fled from Bucky’s posture, filling instead with rage.  He yelped before a strangled roar of a growl ripped from his throat.  He kicked up with his backpaws, slamming them hard against Steve’s stomach.  He was out for blood now. 

Steve was kicked off him, tumbling to the ground.  He quickly rolled over, reclaiming his dominant stance, signaling for Bucky to back down.  HE was the Alpha.  _-I said STOP-_ he roared at him, ready to brace for an attack.

Bucky had just rolled to his own four paws, but Steve’s challenge didn’t even give Bucky a pause.  There were no words this time, just rolling eyes and snapping jaws as Bucky hurtled himself back at Steve with all the force he could summon.  

Steve braced himself for the impact, leaning down to protect his neck and Bucky barreled into him.  He wrapped his massive arms around his torso and tried to wrestle him back to the ground.

Despite all of Bucky’s new strength, Steve still outmatched him by at least the same margin as before.  As he twisted, he ganked Bucky off of his feet and slammed him forcefully onto the packed earth, knocking the breath from his lungs.   
  
But even prone, the fight didn’t drain from his partner – if anything, the pain and prone position just fueled the rage-fire as he struggled and snapped.  

The smell of blood made the air thick - making it even harder for Steve to think clearly in the heat of battle.  Rage and desperation pumped through his veins as they continued to struggle in the middle of the street of the terrified village.  

Fur and blood littered the ground around him as they continued to struggle.  To Steve’s dismay, Bucky wasn’t giving up.  Steve tried everything to incapacitate him - continuously slamming him into the ground, landing harsh bites on his shoulders, arms, and body.  His blood tasted coppery and hot in his mouth - making his eyes sting with tears and his stomach spasm in hunger.

 _-Begging you, Bucky,-_ he snarled.  _-You have to stop.  You HAVE to.  I cannot let you kill anyone else!-_

Even injured, pushed beyond injuries his body would have ever been able to sustain and keep going, Bucky still fought against him.  At Steve’s barks, he reeled back, eyes fixing on Steve’s, - _THEN MAKE ME!-_ He snapped.  It came with all of the vehemence of a challenge, but it was tinged with agony.    
  
He lunged forward.  Even with his shoulders forced against the ground, his long, thick neck gave him the reach to go for Steve’s throat with bared teeth.  

Steve screamed in agony as his teeth sunk into his neck.  He jerked away - causing flesh to rip away and blood to pour down over Bucky. It wasn’t a fatal would - not for Steve - but it was enough that Steve fully realized the weight of the situation.  Desperation, and blinding, pain-fueled rage, cause Steve to lift Bucky up him his arms and slam him down, hard, on the ground.  Hard enough her heard bones crack under the pressure.  Steve was on top of him immediately, closing him teeth around Bucky’s neck and ripping at it with his massive maw.  
  
A strangled, screaming yelp ripped from Bucky’s throat along with a substantial chunk of flesh.  Blood splattered out in a hot spray and began pooling on the earth below him as his body convulsed.  His eyes went wide, whites showing around the huge irises and Steve could hear his breath rattling in his chest.   
  
Strands of flesh around the ragged edge of the wound looked like it was trying to start knitting, but even as it did, the fur around the area began to recede faster than it could.  Smooth, blood-coated skin spreading outwards from the wound as his body seemed to shrink beneath Steve.   
  
As the blood drained from his throat, his head lolled back towards Steve, eyes clearing and face pulling back in to resemble Steve’s friend once again.  His cheeks were wet with tears and his brows drew together in a plaintive look.  Weakly, he lifted a paw – fur retreating and nails withdrawing to reform into a hand that he laid on Steve’s furry cheek.   
  
“Th…Thank you…” He spluttered in a barely-audible whisper.  

The rage in Steve’s blood boiled away instantaneously, and he recoiled from the horror he had done.  _-Bucky!!!-_ he exclaimed, though Bucky could no longer understand anything more than a strangled, desperate cry.  _-No no no no no….-_ Steve’s lupine eyes were wide with panic as he seemed to realize what he did, his large paws immediately going to his neck and trying in vain to slow the bleeding.

Steve’s attempts to quell the bleeding did nothing as hot blood pumped between his thick, furry fingers.  But there was no longer any fear or rage in Bucky’s eyes; just grief and resignment.  “’s…. better… this way.” Bucky croaked, fingers curling gently in Steve’s fur. “glad… was… you.”  
  
And then, as Steve watched helplessly, he saw the tension drain from Bucky’s face and tight fade from his eyes before his head lolled heavily to the side.  

_-NOOOOOoOOOoOooooooo-_ Steve bellowed, coming out as a strangled howl that could be heard literally for miles.  He dropped onto his lupine knees and scooped Bucky’s body into his arms, clinging to him against his fur; rocking back and forth and growling in a defeated, sob-like fashion as if his sheer force of will could keep Bucky with him.

The moment seemed to stretch, the world fading away as the only thing that mattered was Bucky’s limp body in Steve’s arms.  But eventually, the surrounding noises of the world filtered back to him.  Shutters tentatively opening, confused, worried murmuring.  The sound of a gun being loaded.  

Steve sluggishly let the real world coalesce around him as his ears swiveled up, hearing the villagers begin to stir.  He got to his unsteady feet, keeping Bucky locked in his arms.  He stood up tall, the tear tracks evident in his thick fur, as he glowered threateningly at the people brave enough to show their face.  His message was clear - keep away and no one else would get hurt.

He risked a look down to Bucky, his lifeless body limp in his arms, and he felt his chest sweet with despair again.  Chocking back another sob, he slowly dredged down the main road of the village, passing by gouges in the dirt, scattered fur, and big swaths of blood spreading and drying in the dirt.

Silence returned to the village as Steve carried his fallen comrade’s body away in his arms.  No doors opened, and no more shots fired.  Confusion and bewilderment hung in the air as eyes cautiously peered out of windows at the retreating lupine figure, hands crossing themselves protectively.   
  
 Steve wandered around the woods for so long that the peeks of dawn surprised him when he finally looked up into the sky.  He was lost in a fog of depression and denial, keeping Bucky’s body clutched to his fur even though it was now growing cold in his grip.  Putting him down would make it real, and Steve didn’t know if he could handle that.

But the morning was breaking, and the birds were starting to sing, and Steve had to face the realization that the world was moving on.  Sullenly, he found his way back to the tree they had made their camp in the night before with their supplies.  His heart heavy, Steve gently set Bucky down as he went about the task of digging his grave.

He chose the spot between the big roots of the tree where they had spent their last night together.  Tears flowing freely down his face, he was able to dig quite efficiently with his big lupine claws.  Less than an hour later, Steve was gently washing Bucky’s lifeless body in the nearby creek, doing his best to wash away every remain of blood and gore from his form.

He dressed him back in his uniform, despite how tattered it was.  He knew it was what Bucky would have wanted.  He fished his dogtags from around his neck and tucked them into his own pocket, before gently settling Bucky into his grave. For what felt like hours, Steve just lay on the top of the hole, gazing in and sobbing.  Finally, he knew it would have to be done, he leaned in and placed a gently kiss on his forehead before beginning the laborious task of burying him.

Afterwards, Steve used his claws to carve Bucky’s name, birthday, and death date into the tree trunk, before ripping the red star off the left arm of his own uniform, laying it reverently on the soft mound of earth below him.  Picking up his shield and the last of the supplies, Steve Rogers turned and wandered - aimlessly - into the deep woods of the unknown.


	2. Prologue 2: Winter Soldier

Hydra had won.

There was no other way around it, no other way to say it.  While not as successful as they had originally envisioned (thanks to the interference of Captain America and his allies) one Helicarrier had remained operational and carried through with its goal.

It had killed millions, anyone who Zola’s algorithm had deemed a threat to Hydra.  Men, women, even some children who had committed no crime (yet), or shown any inclination (yet) were targeted based on the predictive code.

Now, two years later, the world was both different and familiar.  The deaths of two years past, while traumatizing, had been positioned as necessary, and the list of crimes that Hydra had generated records of for even the most innocent of victims had convinced many.

Terrorist conspirators, traitors, child molesters, rapists, serial killers, the list went on and on of supposed ‘crimes’.  Hydra positioned that it had used the world’s social networking data to make the hard choices no one else had been willing to.

Hydra had provided evidence of their own intentions, that they had been an opposition force against the Nazis that had been vilified by Allies after the war.  They also had documented how they had aided in bringing about the end of the cold war, always from the shadows.  There were even talks of a movie. 

For now though, the time for shadows had ended, and Hydra had become the world police, literally.  For those they deemed innocent, there was nothing to fear.  They could go about their lives, and if anything, they seemed improved.  Certainly unemployment was down, crime was down, the Hydra Helicarrier kept global conflicts from escalating.  Nuclear disarmament was in full force and it was expected that by 2020 there would no longer be a nuclear arsenal in the hands of any powers.

Dangerous ideologies were no longer allowed to flourish in this New World Order.  

Captain America was dead, the world believed in defense of Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., and with him a part of everyone had died.

However, for the Winter Soldier, the past two years had been a never ending nightmare.  One that began with his waking from seventy years of mind control to find his best friend’s blood on his hands, his body at his feet.  Too late, it had been just a moment too late before Steve Roger’s pleads had rekindled something long thought dead in the assassin’s mind.  A connection, a memory… “Till the end of the line.”  No matter what Hydra had done to him, how many mind wipes they had done to him, their serum had worked too well and a part of the man they tried to erase always had remained – buried – but alive.    
  
He wished they HAD killed him.  If they had, Steve would still be alive.  Or, at the very least, he wouldn’t have to live with the guilt and utter desolation he shouldered every day.    
Since then, the only thing that The Winter Soldier thrived on was revenge.  One by one, he would burn to the ground every Hydra facility he could, kill everyone remotely involved with Projects Winter Soldier or Insight… ending with himself.    
  
Every day, memories trickled back to him as his mind healed.  Every time he remembered something else about Steve that knife of guilt and loss dug in deeper.  The man he killed, his friend… his _best_ friend.  Everything they had done for each other for decades of their lives… ended by his hand.  By Hydra.

As the world changed around him, The Winter Soldier stayed focused. He never stayed in one place for longer than a few nights.  He covered his tracks. He used their tools against them: how to avoid detection, even by their satellites.  How to infiltrate their facilities.  How to gather intelligence on where their leaders would be.  And, perhaps most importantly, how to kill ruthlessly and effectively.  He avoided other “heroes” alike – ignoring even the possibility of joining a budding underground resistance.  To most of the rest of the world, he was a terrorist.  Footage “leaked” of the man who killed Captain America.  And it’s not even like it was even a lie.  This was his work, his mission, and his alone.  

All the while, The Soldier’s biggest target had managed to elude him: Alexander Pierce.  His most recent handler, and one of the most powerful heads of Hydra.  Its public face.  Finally, information surfaced through one of his back channels about a facility hidden in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico that Pierce was scheduled to be visiting.    
It the first real opportunity he had to get at him.  Almost too good, but for Pierce, it was too much to resist.

He made his way there as quickly yet discretely as he could, armed for bear.  He pulled out his big guns, reclaimed stashes from safehouses he had squirreled away over the years.  There would be resistance – and the Winter Soldier welcomed it.    
  
The facility had been hard to track down, camouflaged from overhead surveillance almost completely; the only indication of its existence was the occasional set of unmarked trucks.  Even the massive solar farm that powered the installation was kept far away, the cables buried deep underground and routed through caverns that dotted the landscape.

But for those patient enough to spend enough time in the hot desert landscape, there were signs.  The familiar direction of the convoys, the occasional overhead drone.

Signs.  

The Winter Soldier just had to follow those signs, eventually stumbling on the camouflaged base, the S.H.I.E.L.D. based cloaking panels adjusting to allow the most recent convoys to see the entrance if only momentarily.

A peek inside was what it offered, as a large panel came up, suspended on powerful hydraulics, likely thick enough to fool any sort of heat detection.  A ramp lead down to the installation below, as guards began to inspect the trucks and their drivers one by one before allowing them to proceed inside.

They had Colt M4A1 Assault Rifles with some sort attachment with a red scanning laser on them that they passed over the trucks and their drivers, even after manually padding them down for inspection.  Scanning for unidentified weapons most likely.  

Getting inside was clearly no joke, and was likely to be ugly.  
  
If anything, the decades spent as the Winter Soldier, and before that, as a sniper, had taught him patience.  How to pick and take advantage of the perfect time.  As masterful as he was at infiltration, with a base like this, with so much open space and as careful as they were going over every new arrival, he wasn’t going to be able to rely on stealth.    
  
He tightened his grip on his sniper rifle, eying through the scope. He was as close as he could safely get without being spotted.  The hatch was open and the bay doors would be too thick to break through even with his arsenal.  Or at least it would take him too long and use up too much of his ammunition to go in without it being open already.   
  
Now was his best shot.  Even if he stole in on a convoy to get closer, he was going to have to fight his way through just as many men.  
  
He readied his grenade launcher, crouched, and lined up one first distracting shot with the long-distance rifle – his sniper snot taking out the man doing the inspections a moment before he was one his feet and running at full tilt forward, firing off a grenade to cover himself and hopefully send the convoy scattering.

They knew who he was, and he was going to use his reputation – the horrific masked visage of the Winter Soldier – to strike terror into their hearts and hopefully reduce the number of men willing to fight him.  

Some of the men began to fire back, but were clearly distracted by the confusion.  Additional soldiers flooded out from the convoys and began firing at the Winter Soldier, just trying to keep him distracted while the bay door began to close.

But the Winter Soldier was fast; he dove through the narrowing gap, bullets whizzing past him as the Hydra soldiers tried and failed to stop him.

He finished his leap with a roll, firing several bursts as he came up that that took down the remaining armed guards and combatants who were already inside the massive entrance hallway of the facility.  

As he rolled to his feet, his gun locked on of the drivers who had exited the vehicle.  The driver dropped the pistol he had been pulling out and put his hands up.  “Don’t shoot! I don’t want to die.  I just drive the truck,” he cried out.

“WHERE’S PIERCE?!” The soldier demanded, his gun trained on the driver’s head.  He didn’t want to slow his assault, but he had no idea how large this facility was and he needed intel.  Despite his efforts, he had not been able to find any schematics; he knew it was risky going in blind, but it was his only choice.  But every moment he delayed, more reinforcements could come and Pierce might slip from his grasp.  He was certain they knew he was here by now.  Time was ticking.  At the very least, he needed to make sure he got to Pierce – if he was in fact really here – before he could get away in some kind of vehicle.    
  
“He was in one of the supply trucks… further in front.  I think… there were extra guards on it,” the driver said his hands up.  He motioned with his head further down the entry ramp; there had been several trucks before the Winter Soldier had made his move, if he was near the front he could be anywhere by now.  He had to find where those trucks had gone.

The man looked visibly afraid, as the barrel of the Winter’s Soldiers gun leveled with him, “I don’t know anything else, I swear.  I don’t even know what we’re hauling down here.  I have a family, man.”

The soldier barely hesitated.  With a quick snap, he drew his smallest pistol and fired, kneecapping the driver before relinquishing him of his own gun and setting off down the corridor at an inhuman speed.    
  
As he ran, the alarm system came fully online: the hallway lights shifted to flashing red and claxons rang out, reverberating down the hallways.  
  
Already Hydra was mounting an opposition force.  By the time the Winter Soldier could see the end of the sharply down sloping ramp, he was clearly very deep underground.  At the bottom, there was a large receiving bay.  Several of Hydra’s men, armed just as the others, were there and waiting.  They were prepared for the Soldier’s hallway assault, using what looked like WW2 ammo crates and the wall for cover, and opened fire.

The soldier zigged and zagged, his metal arm whipping out in front of him to deflect shots as he didn’t slow his approach.  He fired off return shots with his rifle, his steady hand and brutal aim catching some of the men peering out from behind their cover.  

Suddenly, he skidded to a stop, tossing a grenade he snatched off of his belt over the crates and ducking into a small doorway in the corridor.  He knew the blast radius of his weapons like the back of his hands, and made certain that he tossed the grenade at the precise range to be far enough back from the blast, even with the hopeful amplification of contents of the crates.  

The explosion was almost as impressive as the Soldier had hoped, scattering men and shrapnel all around them.  The remaining stragglers were easy targets from the cover of the doorway, and very quickly the hallway was cleared and he found himself in a large receiving bay, with an elevated glass window in the far wall.  Despite the explosion, several crates and trucks were still intact nearby, but not even half as many as he’d seen enter the building.

The Soldier moved past the decimated barricade to a massive receiving bay with a high ceiling.  Set into the wall across from him was an elevated glass window to a monitoring station.  Inside, the Soldier spotted a couple Hydra officers peering through the windows anxiously, as well as a few men in lab coats.  Below the window, the receiving bay split in three different directions, with hallways wide enough to drive trucks through.  Whatever this operation was it was BIG.

He swore briefly under his breath, taking a quick stock of the room and options.  Too many.  This facility was immense – much larger than he initially surmised.  

His eyes went back to the observation room.  Decision made.    
  
He loaded the grenade launcher and sent a blast towards the glass panes – and a moment after the explosion rocked the facility, he took a running start and scaled the wall, flipping up into the room through the shattered hole he had made in the glass window.  
  
He grabbed the first officer by the lapels and sent him flying back out through the hole he had made, rounding on the others with guns drawn.  
  
“Where’s PIERCE?!” He practically roared.  

An officer, a blonde man in his late 30s locked eyes with the Winter Soldier, his throat bobbing as he swallowed, clearly fearful, “H…h…hail Hydra!”  His fellow darker haired office nodded, inspired by his fellow officer, chimed in a repeated, “Hail Hydra!”.

The white-coated scientists cowered in the shadows of the room behind rows of screens.  
  
In a flash, The Soldier put a bullet in the head of the first man who defied him.  
  
He cocked the pistol and pointed it towards the brunette.  “Try again.”

The brunette officer looked down at his fellow, swallowed, and began to draw his gun up.

“Wait! I know where he went,” cried out one of the scientists, young, bearded, and with a receding hairline.

The soldier popped off a second round into the officer, turning towards the scientist with his thousand-yard stare, boring into him.  “Where.” He barked. 

 “He left his truck, got into an old fashioned car, and headed down Corridor One.  He was headed to-”

Suddenly another scientist had a hand gun drawn “Hail Hydra,” he cried out and shot the first scientist through the head.  Then, the scientist pointed his own gun at himself, and stared down the Winter Soldier.  
  
Fury flashed across the Soldier’s eyes.  Barely meeting the other scientist’s eyes, he whipped his heavy pistol around towards the second scientist and pulled the trigger himself.    
  
“Fuck Hydra.” He spat.  

He had enough information – for now at least.  And The Soldier had been running on a tank full of nothing but fury for years – but now, so close to Pierce, SO close to the retribution he craved, he had little patience for upstarts, and less remorse.    
  
He glanced out of the broken window, seeing a two-story high “1” painted across the central corridor; the corridor with the widest hallways.  What the fuck did they need so much space so far underground for?  But this was an assault, and they knew he was here – he had to move fast.  
  
He leapt back out of the window, landing effortlessly as he set off at a run down the central corridor, reloading his weapons as he did.   Maybe they were working on another helicarrier down here.  That’s the last thing they needed.  They had sent the world into the crapper, and they still weren’t fucking satisfied.    
  
They killed…

NO.

Focus.  

The red lights that dotted the corridor continued to flash and the sound of the alarm was ever present as the Soldier tore down the long hallway.  But as he did, large metal shutters clattered open, at least dozens of them on each side, filled with stockpiles of crates and stored machines of war.

Hydra agents poured out of the bays, mounting their assault and firing at the Soldier with their assault rifles.

The Winter Soldier sent one more grenade rolling towards a central point where the Hydra soldiers were amassing in the narrow hallway, using the distraction to duck into the first large bay on the left – dodging and weaving – using his arm to deflect a few rounds that came close to reaching their mark.  Even then, however, there were so many soldiers, so many rounds.  His armored tactical gear slowed a couple slugs that found their mark.  The Kevlar-absorbed shots would still have sent most men to the ground, and he felt the sting and immediately forming bruise.  But he was no longer an ordinary man.  The bruise would heal – and he kept running.

Inside the bays were rows and rows of 1940s German equipment with Hydra logos on them.  Tanks, armored cars, planes, anti-aircraft guns, large bombs, and what looked like ammo, grenade, and weapon crates.  Why would there be so many vehicles and crates that were decades old – here in the United States, especially?  Was there old tesseract technology on board they were trying to extract?  

The Soldier had seen equipment like this in his time during the war, when he was just Bucky Barnes, before Hydra had moved on to more sophisticated equipment.  But there was enough in just this bay alone to have mounted an impressive attack then, and this was just one of the more than two dozen bays like this.

The Soldier wouldn’t be able to pursue Pierce with the rows of Hydra soldiers swarming after him.  However, he did notice some reluctance on the part of the Hydra units to fire completely haphazardly, and that none of them were using anything heavier than an assault rifle: no grenades or heavy arms.  So it was likely that the bombs and explosives in the crates were live.

For him however, the ammo, bombs, and tank shells would make for his best chance to clear out the swarming Hydra troops.  Just what the hell was Hydra doing down here?

He raced for one of the tanks, using the lines of vehicles to block the incoming volley of bullets.  The weapons here had to be live – maybe the men here weren’t authorized to use these vehicles, but he didn’t give a damn about that.  
  
He swung himself up in a fluid motion, landing heavily on the turret ring and sunk the fingers of his metal arm into the hatch.  It was locked.  That didn’t matter.  
  
The plates along his arm recalibrated, locking tight and he gave a sharp tug.  Metal groaned and the hatch flipped up.  Without missing a beat, he dropped down inside, swinging the coupola closed behind him.   

The inside of the tank was itself a contradiction, as the Winter Soldier examined the cock-pit.  At first glance, it was simple and old fashioned, using tube screens and still seemed to rely on manual valves.  But that was only at the most surface glance.  The targeting systems that showed up on the antiquated monitors were state of the art.  There was something deeply unsettling about the hodgepodge of modern technology on board antique war machines.  The soldier’s brows knit in mild confusion.   Was this headed to some museum that was supposed to feature “deactivated” equipment?  He shook his head.  He could wonder later – level this building to the ground or deal with it AFTER he had a confirmed kill on Pierce… Hydra troops were advancing on him, and he wouldn’t have long before they tried to drag him out of there.

 The Soldier couldn’t help but grin a little as he flicked some switches, ripped open a few panels and crossed some wires.  Unfortunately for them, he had rather intimate familiarity with technology across both eras.  

With a loud grumbling, the tank sprang to life, and he began flipping switches, rotating the turret around towards where the Hydra guards were beginning to funnel into the bay doors.    
  
“Surprise, fuckers.” He muttered to himself as he fired a shell in their direction.

The initial shot took many of them by surprise, the smarter ones running away as soon as the turret started rotating towards them.  The hydra units fell back as the Soldier’s shot had not only taken out several men, but started a chain reaction.  Explosions began to go off, as the gas tanks of the armored cars exploded in a devastating fashion.  The Winter Soldier, protected by the tank, was likely the only one protected from the fireworks.

The Soldier used his opening as an opportunity to chamber another shell, then kicked the tank into forward gear, driving it towards the large doors that were – conveniently – large enough to drive a tank through.  After all, they had to get this beast in there somehow.  It was slow-going, but it was going to be the best way to clear the hallway.  

As soon as the massive vehicle cleared the sliding door, he swiveled the turret around and sent another blast off down the hallway, hoping to hit troops headed his way before they realized he had liberated one of their war machines.  Already the remaining Hydra troops were backing away, scrambling for orders and unsure what to do without any sort of heavy munitions with which to unseat the Winter Soldier’s advantage.  
  
The facility soon devolved into utter chaos as the Hydra units began to fall back to the cover of the bays.  A few tried to get close enough to get inside, but were mowed down by the forward momentum of the German Panzer, their bodies crumpling, smashed under the tank treads.

He almost hated to admit it, but driving a fucking _tank_ through a Hydra facility felt more than a little cathartic.  Almost as much as the first time he had found one of the chairs and cryo machines in another Hydra facility whose location he had dredged up from his resurfacing memories.  After obliterating any records of research they had there, killing a man he knew had been a part of the Winter Soldier project, he had torn the chair to pieces with the metal arm they had given him.  It would never fix what was done to him, but it had felt good to destroy familiar objects that had once brought him pain, stolen his life away.    
  
He continued the path of destruction forward, heading straight down the hallway.  There were over a dozen other bay doors filled with artillery and vehicles, but it could take precious time to stop, reload, and fire into each one.  He needed to get to Pierce before he left the facility. 

He drove forward another few hundred yards, the resistance falling away dramatically until the hallway ended in a massive, partially raised sectional steel door.  It looked like it had been raised just enough to allow a typical vehicle through.  Written across the door in sprayed blocked letters were the words “Project Infinite Elevator” (with the word “Project” half withdrawn into the overhead compartment, but still legible).    
  
The Soldier set his jaw, and increased the Panzer’s speed, barreling through the sheet metal as if it were paper. 

The room, more massive than any of the ones he had seen yet, seemed to have been some sort of repurposed hanger, but the hydraulics for the roof opening were locked into a closed position.  Several rafters ran along the upper levels of the facility, connected to observational rooms filled with computer systems and servers, now abandoned.

At the far end of the room, however, was one of the strangest things the Winter Soldier had ever seen.   Complex machinery ran along the walls, culminating in a circular shape on the far wall.  At its center was a massive series of concentric circles of wavering, glowing blue energy.   Even looking right at them, it was difficult to discern their shape, their form fluctuated continuously, the beams of blue energy strobing.

The entirety of the room extended both upwards as well as downwards –the center of the circles was at ground level with the floor the Soldier drove in on, which extending outwards into an enormous skywalk platform, suspended from the ceiling by solid metal wires.  It was absolutely massive, large enough to drive a reasonably sized aircraft through.

The Winter Soldier was distracted just long enough to almost miss a whirling sound from outside the tank.  He turned the viewscreen up just in time to see someone familiar: it was the other solider he’d fought alongside Steve on the highway and the carrier.  The one with the wings.  The one the Soldier had sent falling towards the ground before the Triskelion went down.  

He was the one that the news reports on Steve had called Sam Wilson, a military veteran.

But he was different.  His face and head bore significant scarring; it was unlikely his hair would ever grow back.  He had his eyes set on the Solder’s tank, the steely determined look familiar to the Soldier as one had worn before.  

Falcon’s pupils turned robotically as they observed, not really human upon close observation.  He appeared to be armored from the neck down.

His arm snapped up, pointed straight at the tank.  And as the Soldier watched through the viewing screen, a metal panel raised up out of his arm itself, containing a small missile.  
  
Something seized in the Soldier’s chest, stirring something he had tried to keep a lid on for the two years he’d been free: a combination of sympathy and dismay at seeing a man – granted, one he hardly knew – but still associated with… With _Steve_ … someone he knew had to be a good man – with _them_.    
  
But he also recognized the make of that missile – and knew exactly what it could do to a tank.  He moved as fast as his enhanced reflexes would allow him, bolting from his seat, flinging open the damaged hatch, and vaulted out of it just as the missile went sailing from its chamber in the _robotic_ arm of the former Sam Wilson.   
  
The Winter Soldier barely escaped the blast from the bunker buster; it hit the tank just as he was diving out of it, the blast from the explosion catching him in the back and sending him straight in to the wall across the room.  When he stood up, his hair smelled singed and his whole body ached from the burns, broken bones, and impact; it would take a minute to recover from that.

On the other hand, the new Falcon wasn’t interested in giving him that.  The Soldier looked up to see new wings extend, as rockets on his back engaged, and he glided down to the Soldier’s level on the skywalk; the wings retracting in one smooth motion as he landed.

“Your hunt ends here,” the Falcon, decked out with Deathlok technology said as he picked up the recovering Soldier and slammed his face in to the wall with a combination of enhanced strength and robotic force, “Stay down.” he said before tossing him like a rag-doll to away his side.  As he the Soldier slid across the room he caught sight of an orange glowing tube going down Falcon’s back between his wing plates.

Indecision churned in his gut for just a moment.  He knew intimately what it was like to be forced to fight for Hydra; the Soldier couldn’t imagine there was a world that The Falcon would be doing this willingly.  Not after what he’d seen of the man; what he’d read in his files.  But how in the _hell_ could he ever get him to listen to him?  Even IF Sam could break out of Hydra programming – even IF they’d only had a few years rather than decades to get their hooks in him.  The Winter Soldier was the assassin that had killed Steve Rogers.   
  
“You know I can’t do that,” He growled as he sprung up suddenly – using his words, with an earnest, desperate tone against a man he would really rather not fight.  He’d try – but he wasn’t going to let him stop him from getting to Pierce either.  His sides groaned in protest – he had broken at least a couple of ribs in the impact – but he’d fought through the pain of broken ribs in the past for much worse reasons. He grabbed at one of the halves of the housing unit for the mechanical wings with his metal hand since the Falcon had overconfidently turned his back towards him. 

Falcon turned as the Winter Soldier grabbed on to his backpack, his robotic eyes twisted again as he first looked at him, then straight up.  His wings extended and his propulsion systems engaged as he lifted into the air, dragging the Winter Soldier who was hanging by one arm along with him as he started flying straight for the ceiling.

The Soldier discovered that Falcon’s wings sturdier than before; Hydra had clearly not spared any expense in their rebuild of Sam Wilson as they both headed directly up at ramming speeds.  
  
“Don’t do this, Wilson,” The Soldier gritted between clenched teeth as he calculated the time he had before impact.  “Steve wouldn’t have wanted this.” He pressed, giving the man another opportunity, despite the fact it gutted him to even mention Steve’s name.  

“Steve,” Sam said, hesitation in his voice, as he slowed slightly, choosing not to take them both at the ceiling at full force.  But the hesitation only lasted a moment, “Don’t you talk about Cap, you KILLED him!” The Falcon cried out, hatred in his voice.  Bucky had struck an exposed nerve.

The Soldier winced as if he’d been hit – it hurt more than the blast into the wall.  But he held on, forcing himself to talk before trying to take him down.  He dug his fingers in harder to the pack, reaching up with his other hand for more support.  “He was my _best friend_ , Wilson.  _They_ made me do it.  Just like they’re making you do this now.  Pierce is the enemy, the REAL enemy. _Where did he go?!_ Help me get retribution for what they made me do to him!”  His words were strained with real, raw emotion that Bucky had been holding back for far too long.  

Falcon reached the ceiling, turning at the last minute as the Soldier felt himself scrape across it before going he returned back down to a diving tailspin.  “Sam Wilson’s dead, I’m just The Falcon now, and that’s your fault too,” he glided along the wall, trying to drag Bucky’s burned and bruised back against it to dislodge him.  “Pierce has gone through the portal, but you aren’t going to get a chance to follow him.  I have orders to take you down here and now.” the Falcon tried to quell the rage he was feeling to focus on the mission.  Misplaced though it might be, the image of the Soldier killing Captain America had been burned in to his head, and he wasn’t of a mindset for forgiveness.

But rage made him sloppy, less able to focus on the myriad computer readings he was receiving.  Whether he realized it or not, the Winter Soldier was using EXACTLY the right tactic.

The portal.  A fucking portal.  Of course.  Why not?  He set his jaw.  It had been a long shot – a really long shot to try to snap it out of him.  He was probably the last person that would be able to get through to Sam after what he did.  He’d make this right – somehow – he’d burn Hydra to the ground, get revenge for Steve… he couldn’t leave another good person in their clutches, turned into a weapon.  But he couldn’t do that if he let Sam kill him.  
  
He kept his grip with his metal hand and pulled himself upwards quickly, slapping his flesh hand over Sam’s eyes before jerking his body sharply, trying to force Sam to barrel roll face-first into the wall he had flown so close towards.  

If the Falcon was listening to his sensors, he might have been able to dodge the wall even without seeing it.  But he wasn’t paying attention to them.  He was too focused on his own thoughts and the burning anger he felt towards the Winter Soldier. 

He spun towards the wall, screaming out in anger, his steely focus gone as he tried to shake the diversion away unsuccessfully as he flew towards it at full speed.  
  
Bucky kept his grip, bringing his knees up and planting his boots against Sam’s back.  At the moment of impact – milliseconds later – he sprang off, driving Sam just a little harder into the wall while sending himself spinning through the air – to land gracefully on the skywalk below.  He didn’t waste any more time, kicking off into a dead sprint for the portal. 

 Sam skidded down the wall, slowly sliding down to a stop, as he bottomed out.   He quickly reached to his vest detaching his two collapsible Steyr SPP submachine guns and fired them in the Soldier’s direction.  

But they weren’t long distance weapons and his targeting systems, among others, were scrambled by the crash.  The bullets flew erratically, missing the Soldier as he ran through the portal and disappeared into it.

Falcon leaned his head back against the wall and caught his breath, before he turned on his communicator with a thought, “Homebase, this is Falcon, the target made it through the portal.  I was not able to stop him.”

“That’s alright, Agent Falcon, you were never really expected to,” came the voice on the other side directly in to Falcon’s ear.  “We are shutting down the portal now, move to safe distance.”

“Happy to comply.”  Falcon stood up and walked away from the portal as the machine surged and a burst of energy erupted across the surface.  The energy sizzled away to nothing, leaving just a smooth wall in its place.

“Damn,” groaned Falcon as he hit the floor with a cybernetic fist, leaving a dent in it, before beginning the climb back up towards the skywalk, his flight mechanisms inoperable.


	3. Where the Hell is Bucky?

A bright flash of blue, an electric sizzle coursed through the Soldier’s body… and then… calm.  Quiet.  Nothing.  He _felt_ his body returning to him before his sight did.  A sense of ground beneath his feet and a slight breeze on the air – the ache and stiffness of his broken ribs and abrasions along his back.  And then… the world reappeared.    
  
The first thing he realized was that he was most definitely no longer in the desert.  Magnificent oak trees towered above him on either side, cast in a shimmering blue.  He turned quickly towards the light source – just in time to see the same undulating blue rings of the… _portal_ … flash intensely bright and then disappear, throwing the surroundings into a darkness.    
  
It only took a moment for The Winter Soldier’s eyes to adjust after the blinding flash.  While there were no other lights about, a full moon hung bright and unobscured in the sky above him, casting more than enough light for his enhanced senses to make sense of the landscape.    
  
Yup.  Definitely a forest.  How in the _fuck_ …  He was standing in the middle of a dirt and gravel road that cut a path through the trees. Fresh tire tracks – probably only an hour or two old – began suddenly at his feet and followed the road away from where the portal had been and towards some towering mountains way off in the distance.    
  
He shook his head, heart slowing to a more normal rate – he couldn’t hear anyone, even straining.  Just the occasional patter in the underbrush from what sounded like small animals and the soothing rustle of a pleasant breeze.  There were no Hydra agents, no immediate threats.  He took a few steps back towards where the portal had been… but to all appearances, it was just a normal road.  There was no odd sensation, nothing.  After a few paces, the tire tracks disappeared and any evidence of vehicles seemed old.  The road curved a few hundred yards in this direction, and there seemed to be nothing of interest that way except more trees.    
  
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose.  There was no way this was New Mexico.  And there was no way much time could have passed – his ribs still protested, and the scrapes hadn’t even finished closing along his back.  Hydra must have developed a goddamned teleporter.  _Fuck_.  The Winter Soldier... _Bucky_ … had seen a lot of weird shit in his time – but this took the fucking cake.  On some ancient level, his mind protested: it wasn’t fucking _fair_.  Something like that – teleportation – it had captured his imagination when he read about it in science fiction dime store novels back in the day.  Now to think that _Hydra_ were the ones to have it?  Made his skin crawl.  

He huffed a sigh, looked back towards where the portal had been, and waved his hand through the empty air once more for good measure.  It was gone now.  He’d have to find his own way back to… well… wherever he was headed next.  But for now, he had a trail.  He couldn’t be _that_ far behind Pierce – though Pierce had a car, and he was on foot.  His blood boiled at the thought he had gotten _so_ close only to possibly lose him now.  He had zero intel on his current location, and he _knew_ it was stupid to charge after him blindly.

But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to do it anyway.  Of course he was.  This was still the best shot at the rotten bastard he had had in two years.  He reloaded his weapons, checking to make sure that they were secure, and started down the road following the tire tracks.  Gravel crunched beneath his combat boots, and he walked with just a bit of stiffness as he felt the now-familiar tingling of his healing factor kicking in and starting to knit skin back together and repair broken bones.  If he was lucky, he could commandeer a vehicle and close the distance before he lost his trail.  

An hour later, Bucky had to admit to himself that luck was rarely in his favor.  Every minute was putting more distance between him and Pierce.  The narrow dirt road continued to stretch on for miles upon miles, and the distant mountains seemed no closer, not another vehicle in sight the entire time.  .  
  
 

Several miles away, under the light of the full moon, the creature formerly known as Steve Rogers was on the prowl.  The hunger was always strongest when the moon was full - the moon refused to let him go back into his human form, even if he wanted to.  But Steve hadn’t felt human in months… not since the taste of Bucky’s blood on his tongue.

He had already eaten most of the deer he slaughtered a few hours ago, but he was hunting again.  The hunger on these nights was insatiable, and he was hoping to come across a boar.  Nose to the ground, he snuffed and rooted around in the leaf litter, rustling up a whole array of smells.  Ever since this happened to him, his nose and his ears painted an image in his mind just as vivid, if not moreso, than his eyes.  A few hours ago, an odd-sounding vehicle had rumbled down the dirt road.  Mostly, it stood out to him because hardly anything ever came to or from these dark woods; and what did was usually still on horses or in old, clunky pickup trucks.  

He had considered investigating, but the hunger was too great these nights.  Despite everything that had happened to him, Steve still refused to eat human flesh.  The business of man and the battle of nations was not his concern anymore.  Captain America was dead, and only the wolf remained.

Though as he continued to stalk the night, something came across his nose that made the color drain from the pink of his ears.  It was just a fleeting whiff - carried on the wind from the general direction of the road.  A tiny drip, seeping through a crack in a huge dam of emotion.  His ears perked and his head jerked up immediately.  Was he dreaming?  How… how could he have smelled Bucky on the wind?

He tried to ignore it - it HAD to have been a trick on his mind.  Maybe he rutted up a patch of dirt that he had passed over before when he still had Bucky’s scent on him.  But another current of wind and another ghost of a scent he had convinced himself he would never be able to smell again.  

He had to check it out.  

Steeling his nerves, the wolf began to lurk through the shadows, making his way towards the old dirt road.  Much to Steve’s confusion and heartache, the scent got stronger and stronger the closer he got.  He felt his heart pounding in his chest as he came to the treeline, his blue eyes peering out from the copse of trees.

Through the foliage, Steve finally caught sight of the source of the scent, which only had grown more distinct and familiar as he approached:  Bucky, mixed with notes of gunpowder and blood.  But that was where the resemblance seemed to end.  The figure, illuminated by the moon, was a little taller and significantly stockier than Bucky should have been.  Long hair brushed his shoulders and he was clad head to toe in black tactical gear, a thick, armored leather jacket, and he was positively bristling with weaponry.  A mask covered the bottom half of his face, but most notably was the moonlight glinting off of what appeared to be some sort of metal armor that ran all down his left arm.  His boots crunched along the gravel as he trekked – alone – along the long road that led up towards the mountains with a determined gait.

But then, suddenly, the figure stopped, straightening and glancing about warily, eyes strafing the trees on the side of the road where Steve was crouched.  His right hand drifted to his thigh, where a pistol was holstered.  

Steve’s blood pumped full of rage in his veins.  Who was this?  Why did he smell like Bucky?!  It seemed impossible, but his mind was racing.  Did he disturb his grave?  Was he Hydra?  Did he have some of Bucky’s old clothes?  None of that seemed to make sense; he didn’t smell of death, and as dark as a thought that it was, Steve knew the body would reek by now.  And he smelled too strong to just have had a passing connection to old clothes… 

But when the figure stopped and poised for attack, he went on the offensive.  He jumped out from the treeline, landing on his rear legs and bellowing out a roar to the intruder.

In a flash, the heavy pistol was in his hand and snapped around towards Steve.  But the figure’s eyes were wide with shock, and even he fell back a few paces at the sudden appearance of an enormous _wolf_ poised on hind legs.    
  
The Winter Soldier’s heart hammered in his chest as his mind raced to make sense of the creature that confronted him, but he didn’t pull the trigger.  Not yet.  His mind accessed and processed combat situations with incredible speed and precision – and he recognized an intimidation tactic rather than an outright attack.  This creature _could_ have gone immediately for a tackle or pounce rather than this showboating.  And The Soldier, even when in Hydra’s tentacles, had always had a difficult time using outright violence against animals.  But this…  It… it _had_ to be some kind of Hydra-created monster.  Right?  Christ, it was huge… and not to mention standing up.  Where the _hell_ was he?!  He hadn’t seen a fence or wall in the hour or so he’d been walking.  If this was another Hydra research facility, it was terrifyingly huge.  

“Eeeasssyy there, Fella…” He tried, keeping the pistol in his right hand, trained on the creature, and extending the metal left hand with a placating gesture that doubled as a second line of defense.  _One chance,_ he thought to himself.  “I really don’t like hurtin’ animals…” He added, keeping his tone as placating as he could, not expecting the words to mean anything to the beast.  

The wolf’s whole demeanor changed the moment the man opened his mouth.  Everything hit him like a ton of bricks; it wasn’t just the smell of him but the smell of everything -about- him.  His hair, his skin, his breath.  

And his voice.

He hadn’t heard that voice in months.  He could draw Bucky all day long, score his image into his mind for the rest of time - but how do you preserve someone’s VOICE? It was impossible, except in the fragility of one’s memory (thankfully Stave’s eidetic memory gave him an advantage over most…) It was, perhaps, a bit deeper but still unmistakably BUCKY and …. 

….just how? 

He immediately dropped his fearsome visage as he planted his hindquarters onto the ground, his ears back against his head and his head cocked to the side.  His blue lupine eyes searched his, questioning.

The Winter Soldier blinked, surprised.  He hadn’t expected his words to have had much if any effect on the wolf creature.  It had to have had some experience with people, right?   Hopefully, that was a good sign.    
  
And not standing up and snarling, it was really kind of fascinating.  _Huge_ … with golden fur and striking blue eyes.  He was honestly a bit relieved that it backed down.  He _really_ didn’t want to have to put it down.  As more of his memories had been emerging, he clung to pieces of his lost identity – and he honestly had always really had a soft spot for animals.  Feeding scraps of his lunch to strays back in the day, making friends with dogs overseas….   
  
Cautiously, still keeping his left arm out and eyes narrowed, scrutinizing the animal’s behavior, he reholstered the pistol.   “Good…. Good boy.” He soothed.  “I don’t have nothin’ for you to eat, sorry fella… An’ I really got to get going…”  _Fuck_ – he was already hours behind Pierce – who was probably who the hell knew _where_ by now.  

_-Who ARE you?-_ he asked, though to the Soldier’s ears it sounded just like a confused animal.  _-How is this possible?  Bucky…?-_   His eyes were large, glassy as he stared at the masked man.  He looked to the metal of his arm and his ears drooped lower.  He cautiously reached out and sniffed at it quizzically.

There was no scent of flesh underneath the metal plating – just more metal… and a very particular scent at that – one he’d only smelled before on his own shield.    
  
The soldier kept his arm extended as the wolf investigated it, letting him give it a few sniffs before, smirking to himself underneath the mask, he turned his hand over and gave the animal a few scritches along his muzzle.  _What’s the worst thing that would happen, anyway_ , he thought to himself.  Not like an animal bite to his metal arm, even one from something as big as this one, would do much.     
  
“Okay… See?  ‘m not gonna hurt you… you’re not gonna hurt me.  Now I really got to get going…”  Almost a shame.  Damn, what he wouldn’t have given once upon a time to run into a giant, friendly(ish), monster wolf. 

Vibranium?!  Steve pulled back with surprise when the scent hit his nose, before going right back.  When the man touched him, he felt his heart lurch into his chest.  He was still confused… -so- confused.  But in the moment, he was happy to let himself get lost in the moment.  It was like a warm, comforting blanket of smells and happier memories.  

When the man said he was leaving, Steve jumped up to all fours, standing between him and the direction he was heading on the road, blocking his way.

The Soldier stopped mid stride, pursing his lips.  “MMkay, see that’s not gonna work there, fella.  It was nice meetin’ you and all but…” He tried to take a few steps around the furry roadblock.  “I’ve got something I need to do…”

_-Not until I figure out what’s going on! -_ he said, stepping in front of him when he tried to move around.  _-Who are you?-_    He stood back up on two legs again, not in a threatening way (though he stood nearly a foot above the soldier like that…), and tentatively held a giant paw out towards his face.

The Soldier shook his head, baffled at the barking chuffs that the wolf made, but its aggressive posture was gone.    
  
“Hey, ‘m sorry… I’d love t’ stay and pet you, but there’s a really nasty guy who’s getting _further away_.” He finished with an edge to his voice, setting his posture as the creature reached out towards him.    
  
He reached up with his left arm again to push him away, but he paused, distracted.  He couldn’t help but stare at just how _hand-like_ that paw looked.  “The hell _are_ you…”  

He let the pads of his paws trace over the sides of the man’s face, before trailing over the fabric of the mask, trying to find a release or buckle.

What kind of animal was this?!  Those eyes – there seemed to be a distinct spark of intelligence behind them.  Using its paws – no- _hands_ deliberately?  Could it actually understand what he was saying?  It had gotten in his way right when he said he needed to go… 

This close up, the steely blue of the man’s eyes were so, _so_ familiar.  His brow furrowed and he met Steve’s eyes.  “What are you doin’…?”  
  
The edge of Steve’s claw caught on a buckle on the back of the mask, and he heard a releasing “click” as it fell away.  

The face beneath the mask… There was no way around it.  It was Bucky.  it was older, with a touch of stubble that the Bucky he knew never would allowed to take root.  But it was _him_.  The same cleft in his chin, the same wide-set blue eyes and bowed lips.    
  
Steve stumbled back on his feet, one his paws coming up to his muscle as he looked him over, confusion in his eyes.  He dropped back to all fours, his maw hanging open in disbelief. _-Bucky?  Is that really you?  How can it be??-_    

He shook his head - he knew Bucky couldn’t understand him.  He cursed at himself and the full moon in the sky that kept him from being able to shift.  A full moon - of course it HAD to be a full moon...

He couldn’t understand him, but even if it didn’t make sense – he could read the confusion and shock on the creature’s face.  This was getting stranger and stranger…

He followed its gaze up to the sky and the… full moon… and back with a really dubious expression.  “Naw… no that’s can’t be right…”  

It _did_ look like a giant flipping wolf.  It _did_ stand on its hind legs and have hands… 

But a _werewolf_?  That was just … well… coming from a cybernetic super soldier… that was impossible.   Right?  

Steve had to try.  He couldn’t wait… he couldn’t.  He reached over, taking his leather jacket in his teeth and pulling him towards the woods.  He had to know - was he going crazy?

“Whoa- whattareya doin?”  He protested as he was tugged away from the road.  He glanced back at the tire tracks, sighing in exasperation.  Pierce had a hell of a head start.   And a car.  And The Soldier had _zero_ intel on where Pierce was going or what would be waiting for him once he got there.   He wasn’t going to catch up to him on foot.  

He looked back towards the wolf and the woods he was dragging him to, sighing again with deliberate exaggeration.  Okay.  So he was curious.  And that made him feel more alive than he’d felt in decades.    

“Fine.  I hope you know where you’re going.” He griped.  

Steve was nearly giddy in excitement.  He kept pulling at him until he was sure he was following, then he let go, leading the way deep into the woods.  He had a pep to his step and Bucky even caught his tail swaying behind him.  Every few steps the wolf was looking back at him, making sure he was keeping up.

The Soldier snorted, mostly at himself.  “I shouldn’t let you distract me,” He muttered to himself.  And yet, he found himself following after the wolf nonetheless.  “You know, I haven’t gotten this close to Pierce in two years.  Two fuckin’ _years_ , wolfie.  This better be good.  Course, it’s not every day I find myself face to face with a flippin wolfman.  Or… you know… whatever you are…”  Why was he talking?  Probably because he’d lost his fucking mind, that’s why.  

It took a while, and though Steve was listening he was more focused on getting to his ‘home’ - he had to know!  Finally, there was a bit of a clearing in the woods, and they came across was looked to be a log cabin-in-the-making.  Felled trees littered the area, and piles of chopped logs.  There was little more at this point than a corner with a cleared space with a fire pit.  

He looked back to Bucky, gauging his reaction.

Bucky stopped in his tracks, shaking his head in bewilderment as he approached cautiously, noting the very deliberate construction and the undeniable beginnings of a house of sorts.  He was no carpenter, but there was nothing ‘animal’ about this construction.  

“The hell…” He started, dropping to a knee by the corner of the cabin and checking the deliberate construction marks at the corner of the building, and the evidence of a recent fire.  
  
“Did you do this…?  Hell…. Can you understand what I’m saying?” He asked incredulously, standing again and turning to face the wolf.  

Why did he lead _him_ here?  Why had he looked so surprised?  Was this an honest to God werewolf?  If so, why hadn’t it tried to tear his face off?  

Steve nodded at him, but then he disappeared behind one of the walls and Bucky could hear the sound of distant churning of earth.  When he came back around the corner, there was something in his mouth, wrapped in a old piece of cloth - something that looked like an army-green colored jacket.  He must have buried whatever it was -the outside was caked with black dirt.  It was large, about three feet across, and heavy.  He nudged it over to Bucky, encouraging him to ‘open’ it.

Hesitance passed the Soldier’s features as he dropped to a knee and took the object.  As soon as he got his hands on it, however, a chill ran down his spine.  The sound his metal fingers made against the fabric-wrapped metal was unique.  “No…” He whispered in a strangled voice.    
  
No, it couldn’t be.  
  
Fervently, he tore away the army-green swathing to reveal… Steve’s shield.

“What…. How…”  Bucky’s hands shook, trying to reconcile the object in his hands.  “Where… _where did you find this?!”_ he turned on the wolf, not even realizing that tears had begun to spill down his cheeks.    
  
The last time he had seen this shield… Steve had dropped it from the helicarrier… they were crashing… 

He was on his feet, desperate, more feelings bubbling to the surface than he had allowed himself to experience in so, _so_ long.  “ _Where did you get this?!”_ He repeated.  “This was _Steve’s_.”  It was lost… right?  Had Hydra found it?  But what was it doing here, with this creature?  Nothing was making sense, and Bucky felt like he was going crazy, fraying at the edges.  Maybe it had only been a matter of time; he had barely held himself together as long as he had.  Now, he realized just how much he was holding back behind his emotional dams.

_“HOW DID YOU GET THIS?!”_ He demanded again, the shield clutched in his metal hand.  

  The wolf watching him carefully, a look caught somewhere between excitement and anguish on his face as the tears spilled down Bucky’s face.  He reached over, letting the pads of his pawed finger wipe away the tears before slipping his arm into the straps of the shield, pulling it away, gently, holding it not in his mouth but over his left arm, standing on his hind legs.  

He looked up into the moon, then leveled his steel blue eyes on Bucky with a pointed expression.  
  
Confusion warred with incredulity on Bucky’s face.  He couldn’t mean… no… that was impossible.  Although that word seemed to have adopted a very loose meaning that night already.  Here he was having a conversation with an enormous wolf… a _werewolf_ … after going through some kind of portal.  

“That’s not… You can’t mean… _this isn’t funny_.” He hissed, shaking his head adamantly.  His chest ached and his stomach twisted. If this was some kind of sick psychological warfare, the Soldier would have rather the wolf just attacked him.  

_-Bucky….-_ he lamented, his soul crushing under the weight of not being able to ask his questions, or tell him who he was.  He walked away and came back a few minutes later with the remains of his tattered uniform: undeniably Captain America, though different than any uniform Bucky had ever seen him in.  The shirt was heavy and scale-mail, like some kind of old-fashioned knight.  Instead of a helmet, there was a tattered cowl and shredded remains of red leather boots and gloves.  

_-How can you be here?  Why do you look so different?  How did you get a vibranium arm?-_ he chattered at him, going off in a series of whines and barks.

Bucky’s brow furrowed deeper as he took the torn uniform.  His fingers ran over the strange armored texture as his teeth worried at his lower lip.  

Steve’s shield… some version of his uniform… Had he found his body…?  But that made absolutely no sense… they sure as hell weren’t in DC or anywhere close to it.  And this wasn’t what he had been wearing.  In fact, he’d never seen any uniform quite like this… not with the armor… 

He swallowed, looking between the uniform and the wolf, looking again at that _particular_ shade of blue of his eyes.    
  
“You can understand me, right?” His breath was a little ragged as he was trying and failing to meter out his emotions, “Please… tell me – _somehow_ – that you’re not tryin’ to say what I think you’re tryin’ to say.  This… these _aren’t yours_.”  He set his jaw. 

Steve was down on all fours again, nosing his hand with his muzzle.  His tail wagged behind him slowly, doing his best. _-Yes… I don’t know how, but yes…-_   He looked him back into the eyes, head tilting.  _-You really know who I am?  You know… Steve Rogers?-_

Bucky was fighting through choking emotion, not wanting to dare hope the impossible.  His hand – his flesh one – reached out and absently scratched the fur between his ears as he struggled with the concept.    
  
“This shield…” there was none other like it… he could tell by the tone of the metal, by the weight of it that it was Steve’s.  “This belonged to my friend… my best friend, Steve…” he added with a whisper.  “But he died.”    
  
“How did you get this…?” He begged, earnestly.  

_-Died…?-_   Steve backed away a few paces, shaking his head.  _-No!  No it was you that died, Bucky…-_ His browns knit in confusion as he paced back and forth for a minute.  His gaze went back to the moon in frustration; he would give anything to have his voice right now.  

Finally he went back to the house and nosed around a few hides and logs until he pulled out an old leather-bound sketching journal - one that looked almost exactly like the one Steve was never without and he and Bucky were children.  He presented it to Bucky, sitting back and letting him flip through it.

The first third of the book seemed pretty standard faire from what Bucky would have remembered of Steve’s charcoal sketches.  Brooklyn.  The ferris wheel at Coney Island.  Then tanks, weapons from WWII-era wartime.  But as the book progressed into pictures of.. Bucky and Steve.  

It was undeniably them; though it looked more like the artwork out of the WWII Prop comics that they distributed.  Cap wearing scale-mail armor and fighting side-by-side with a much younger looking…him?  It looked like a teenage version of him, wearing a blue peacoat and domino mask as they punched Nazis and disarmed munitions factories.

The later pages seemed to get more solemn…done with more care, almost a reverence.  They were almost exclusively of Bucky.  Smiling, crying, laughing… studies about his uniform and his face; full of loving details.

As he flipped, Bucky’s heart felt like it was sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of his stomach.  He slowed as he flipped.  The style was Steve’s – he would have recognized it blind, or a hundred years after never having seen it.    
  
It confused him for a moment when a drop of water fell on a page of the two of them until he realized he was crying.  He didn’t know Steve had copied the comic style, but… seeing new artwork of his, undeniably his, it was heartwrenching.  

Steve’s shield, a Cap uniform (that was eerily similar to the one in the art and the prop comics), this sketchbook… he looked up to the full moon again and back to the wolf, mouthing silently for a moment as he tried to find his voice.

“You… “  He was almost afraid to ask, “Did… did you draw these?”

He nodded solemnly, watching his expression with a breaking heart.  He didn’t know how this was possible but he knew this was Bucky.

Bucky’s face crumpled, and he shook his head.  “This is Steve’s… this is Steve’s style…” He choked earnestly.  “I’d know it anywhere.  You…”  He drew in a ragged breath.  “Are you tryin’ t’ tell me…”  It was hard to say, saying made the idea real – as impossible as it all was.  Finally, he blurted out, “Are you trying to tell me _you’re_ Steve?”  Those eyes… they were _so_ blue.  The fur the same golden blonde that still haunted his dreams.  

_-Yes!  Yes, I’m Steve!-_ he barked out, his ears perking and his tail up.  _-You know me, Bucky?  Do you really know me?-_    He nudged his hand again, risking leaning his huge head against him.

Incredulity tinged with just a glimmer of hope shone on Bucky’s features as he shook his head, “That’s… but…”  He took a breath and started over, tentatively running his hands through the wolf’s… through… _Steve’s?_... thick fur.  “How is that _possible_?  You died… you’re a wolf.. a… are you a _werewolf?!_   That kinda stuff is just in the picture shows…”  He swallowed.  Hydra… Hydra _was_ in possession of his body.  Had they done something to him?  Was it possible?    
  
“Did… Did Hydra do something to you, Steve?” He whispered, feeling more than a little insane calling him by Steve’s name.  

_-Yes!-_ he exclaimed, nodding his head.  _-Yes, it was Hydra!-_   He put his paw on Bucky’s chest looking into his eyes and nodding. _-I’m not dead, Bucky!  Hydra did this to me… I’m not dead?  Why do you keep saying that?-_

A sob tore loose from Bucky’s throat, his shoulders convulsing as his fingers dug deeper into Steve’s fur, clinging to him.  

_He was alive_.  

_Steve was alive._

He didn’t care how insane it was – he didn’t _care_ what he looked like.  It was Steve, and he knew him, and he was alive.  Or maybe he had finally just lost his connection to what was left of his sanity.  He didn’t care if that was the case, either.  It was better… better than the alternative.  

Already, Bucky was trying to corroborate what he thought he knew with what he had learned to make sense of the absolutely bizarre situation.  Hydra must have done something to his body to bring him back… maybe try to resurrect him or put him under their control.  Steve must have escaped – of course he would have – he was always the stronger of the two of them, even when he was 100 lbs soaking wet.  He was always the better man.  

“I’m so sorry, Steve…” he hiccupped, burying his face in his ruff.  

Steve let Bucky crumble into his massive arms, his own tears beginning to fall into the soft fur of his face.  He held him close, feeling him in his arms; he was bulkier than Steve had ever seen before.  Taller, all around bigger... but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind this was Bucky.  

He pulled back and looked at Bucky when he started apologizing, tilting his head curiously.  He gave him a quick lick on the cheek, nuzzling his chin up with his muzzle.  _-Sorry for what, Bucky?-_

“I’m _so_ sorry,” He just repeated, meeting his eyes this time, face falling into one of anguish, of two years worth of guilt spilling over and having an outlet to finally sound against.  It was like the wound was opened anew, raw, and painful.  

“I… I didn’t want to… I didn’t  know…  Not until it was too late.”  He’d wanted to say those words to Steve for years.  Wished he could have.  Even if this wasn’t really Steve – even if he had finally just gone insane and was talking to some confused animal, it was some kind of catharsis.  “You… you were my best friend… I just… I couldn’t remember.  I… I didn’t mean to kill you…”  He blubbered, barely coherent.   
  
He clung tighter, his words finally devolving into gasping sobs.  For now, Pierce was forgotten.  All of the running, the injuries – now mostly healed but still a taxing process – and the raw emotions were wearing him out.  Steve’s big arms felt safe… warm… 

_-Killed me?-_

Steve grew quiet, just holding onto Bucky.  He sat in the corner of the lean-to, pulling Bucky with him and letting him get it out.  Steve grew introspective, his mind alternating between just letting him hold Bucky for a little while longer, trying to figure out what was happening, and his own guilt and sadness bubbling over.  

Was this some kind of… test?  Tribulation? Punishment?

Or a chance at redemption?

Bucky barely noticed as he was moved to a new location, all of the fight gone from him.  Instead, he clung to the massive, protective form that shielded him as his words completely fell away to wracking sobs. 

Eventually, those too quieted and the tension eased from his muscles as exhaustion gave way to sleep.  For the first time in decades, it was a deep, dreamless sleep as he tucked in close, burrowing deep into Steve’s enormous embrace.    
  
Steve was asleep soon after, though early in the morning, as the moon set, he felt a now-familiar tingle at the base of this neck.  It had been a long time, longer than he liked to think about, since he had taken advantage of the morning sun on his face like he was considering. 

Gently extracting Bucky from his grasp, he got up and rummaged for his clothes - the remains of the blue scale mail shirt, tattered cloth blue military pants, and split boots.  Letting the sun rain down on his face in the morning light, Steve sat down and closed his eyes.  Meditation was the easiest, and least painful way, to transform.  His body cracked and shifted slowly back to his human dimensions, and he unsteadily got to his feet.  It was disconcerting to him how alien this form felt to him now, after so long…

He pulled on his tattered clothes, thinking he probably looked like some mockery of his former self…

It had been a long time since Bucky allowed himself to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.  But eventually, consciousness drifted back to him.  A moment later, he had sat bolt upright, wide-eyed as he looked around the wooden lean-to as memories of the night before hit him like an assault.  It had to have been a dream.  

Right?  
  
But trampled earth flooring was littered with animal hair… and so was his tactical gear.  Everything was in tact; all of his possessions accounted for.

But it couldn’t be real.  Maybe he had been hallucinating the “conversation” with Ste- with the animal.  Maybe there had been some kind of drug he’d been tagged with… 

He crawled out of the makeshift shelter and swallowed as the light of the sun clearly illuminated the initial construction of a building… and Steve.  

The breath caught in his throat as he caught sight of the figure he could have recognized blind, standing not even fifty feet away, looking over his own torn uniform.  

For a moment, he just stood quietly, staring and trying to find some way that this wasn’t real.  

But finally, the words drifted out of his mouth, “… Steve…?”  
  
Steve looked up, startled.  He still looked ashamed at his raggedy appearance, but a small, almost sad smile broke out on his face as he looked over at his companion.  “Bucky…”  saying his name in his own voice seemed to warm his smile even bigger, and he took a few hesitant steps forward.

It took all of his Winter Soldier composition to hold back tears again at seeing - God there was no denying it - Steve.  It was like looking at a ghost.  But he was whole.  Alive.  And _Steve_.  The same sad smile, the same self-conscious way he held himself even though he was huge.  

 “My God, it’s really you…” he said with another shake of his head as he started to close the distance.  “I thought maybe I was goin’ crazy.  Still not completely sure I haven’t.”   He ran his flesh hand through his hair to try to dispel some of his nervous energy and took a shaking, steadying breath.

  “I don’t… I don’t understand how you’re here…” he said, looking him over, more his own size now.  Despite having slept in each other’s arms the night before, there was no barrier of language.  It felt different, more real now.  “You’re… you’re dead.”  It pained him to say it, even now, looking at him.

Bucky’s brows furrowed and he shook his head, finally coming to a stop just a few feet away from Steve.  Here in the light of day, standing right in front of him, undeniably real.   Maybe whatever Hydra had done had made him lose some time… memory loss wasn’t uncommon after trauma, especially for the things that led up to it…  
  
He swallowed, holding the breath for a moment before responding, “What?  No… no I’m not.”  He winced before looking back up.  It was so hard to meet those eyes after… “I don’t know what they did to you to bring you back.  I mean… that… that _was_ really you last night, right?   Maybe whatever they did made you forget.”  He started, guilt written all over his face.  

“What do you mean, bring me back?” he asked, frowning.  Bucky was never this tall compared to Steve, and it was a bit awkward having to look him in the eyes.

Bucky’s jaw worked, clenching and unclenching as his eyes traveled down to the ground, settling on Steve’s torn boots.  It was a lot harder bringing it up with him looking like himself, able to talk back.  And _Christ_ if that wasn’t werid.  A big part of him wanted to redirect, ask about the whole wolfman thing.  But he owed it to Steve to be honest.  Even if he didn’t remember. 

He owed him a hell of a lot more than that.

“I… you don’t remember I guess… Steve, we fought.  I didn’t actually die.  Hydra found me and had gotten their fuckin’ hooks in me and I didn’t remember who I was.  And,” he took another breath, wringing his hands and still staring down at Steve’s boots.  He told him last night.  He could do this.  “I killed you.” He finished with a weak whisper.  “You… stopped fighting back.  I didn’t realize… not until it was too late.”  

Steve’s eyes narrowed in concern.  “No… that’s not what happened, Bucky,” he said, reaching out and placing a heavy hand on his shoulder, surprising himself with how his breath caught in his throat at the touch.  “Bucky, you didn’t.. I mean, you were out of your head, you didn’t know any better.."

Bucky’s eyes flicked up to Steve’s at the contact, red-rimmed and moist.  He wanted to touch it, place his hand on top of Steve’s, but he held himself back.  Still, there was a quiver through his frame that Steve could feel.   
  
“But-” He started, shaking his head quickly, “But I still _did_ it.  That doesn’t change it.  I should have… I should have realized, I should have been stronger!”  He balled his hands into fists and tried to keep focus.  Five minutes.  Hell, three minutes sooner… 

But Steve was _here_.  Somehow.  

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.  “No… it was…” something seemed to dawn on him and he looked back to Bucky.  “But…how can you be here, Bucky?” he asked, his voice choking up.  “I… I buried you..."

“I – what?” That got his attention.  There was no way Steve could have found his body after the fall from the train.  

“That – that doesn’t make any sense, Steve.  When you thought I died, there’s no way you found me.  Hydra did.  You can’t have buried me.”  

“Hydra found both of us, Bucky…” he said, growing concerned.  His heart was already beating in his chest, fearing reality was catching up too fast.  He wanted to quit talking - just wrap Bucky in his arms again and go back to sleep.  He motioned helplessly at his tattered clothing.  “We were both… “

Bucky shook his head again, “Both… what, Steve?”  This was crazy.  This was all fucking crazy.  

“Both there!” he said, exasperated.  “Turned into monsters… you and me and the most of the rest of the allied army!”  He shook his head, pacing in quick, tight circles like an animal in a cage.  “I was the only one who didn’t completely lose my mind!”

_There?  Monsters?  Allied Army?_   Bucky’s eyes went back to the strange version of Steve’s uniform, the gears in his head beginning to turn, but the results were just… weird.  Too weird.

“You’re talkin’ about last night.  What happened to you.  The whole-“ He swallowed, gesticulating awkwardly, “werewolf thing?”  He had really hoped that part was a dream. “Yeah, I mean, I figured Hydra must’ve been behind that – fucking crazy as it is – but, no, Steve.  I wasn’t there.  When they had me, it was just me.  They tortured me, brainwashed me, turned me into their weapon.” He gestured awkwardly to his arm, “But I’m not like what I saw last night.”  He swallowed.  “And allied army?  Steve… the war’s been over for decades…” What they hell had they done to him?  

The sinking feeling in Steve’s gut felt like a heavy stone now.  This couldn’t be Bucky… not the Bucky he knew at least.  None of this was adding up.  “No, the war is still going on!” he said frantically, then frowned as he realized that was only an assumption.  He had been so removed from the effort for months - he wouldn’t know if the war was over or not.  “This doesn’t make any sense, Buck.  You’ve only been gone for a few months but you look… so different."

“World War Two?” Bucky asked with his own sinking sense of dread.  Maybe… maybe he was talking about something else.  After all, The Soldier had barely paid attention to what was going on in the world beyond what he needed to function, survive, and hunt down Hydra.  He knew a lot of people had been killed in the helicarrier attacks, though, maybe the world _was_ at war.  Fuck, he was out of touch.  But “allied army?”  

Those war machines back at the base had looked an awful lot like vehicles from the 40s… 

Steve had to be confused.  His mind fucked with.  Hydra _had_ had him, and had obviously done something to him. 

But what if the portal…

Noo…. 

“Yes?  The Second World War, Bucky.  Don’t you remember?  Hitler?  The Red Skull?”

“Of course I remember,” He rebuffed quickly, irritation and frustration showing in his tone.  Then he sighed.  It really was a valid question, all things considered, whether Steve knew it or not.  
  
“Yes.  Sorry.  I do.  But that- that was a long time ago, Steve.  Are you _sure_ it’s still goin’ on?  Hydra obviously did something to you.  I mean, they did to us both, but I’ve been out of their hands for a few years now.”  

“No….” Steve rubbed his temples, continuing to pace.  “No you’ve only been dead for months…” he seemed to count something in his head.  “Six months?  I mean, yeah it’s spotty but not years, Bucky.  Not years… I held you!  I held you in my arms for hours before I put you in the ground… how is this possible?!"

Bucky swallowed thickly, the weight of this information felt like it wanted to pull him to the ground.  Instead, he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to process.

“I was following Pierce…” He shook his head with a scowl, hating to admit it .  “There was this portal in the Hydra facility.  I thought… I thought it just took me some _where_ else…”  He heaved a deep sigh.  Could it have taken him back in time?  It seemed preposterous.  But so did werewolves.  But this had never happened to him back in the day.  And his Captain America uniform looked different.  
  
He looked back up to Steve with a wince.  “What _year_ do you think it is?”

“1945,” he said with a resolute certainty, looking at Bucky, waiting for the shoe to drop. That was never a good question.

Fuck, that’s exactly what he was afraid of.  Bucky finally did let gravity win and sunk down to a squat on the ground.  “Christ…” he murmured.  “Well, either one of us is completely off our rocker, which I’m not willing to write off yet, or I went back in time… or _something_. Last I checked it was 2017.”  

“That’s impossible,” he breathed.  “You’d be nearly 100 years old..."

“It’s a long story,” Bucky muttered, “But yeah, I’d have turned 100 this year, I guess, if anyone was counting.” He sighed, “Hydra had me for a long time, Steve.  They froze me, put me in a cryo tank between… _missions_.  So I wasn’t awake for most of it.”  

“Well, 92…” he corrected absent-mindedly, rubbing his face.  “But that doesn’t make any sense.  I’ve been here in these woods for 6 moons now… trust me, I notice.”

Bucky shook his head, looking (and feeling) utterly overwhelmed.  “Right.  Because you’re a _werewolf_ now.  Because those are real.  Apparently.”  He ran his fingers through his hair, giving it a quick tug for some kind of sensation to remind him he was awake.

“So did Hydra really develop a fucking _time machine?!”_ That was a horrifying notion.  “But that doesn’t make any sense, either.  I sure as hell would have remembered, I think, if you were a werewolf.  But no, 100.  Pretty easy subtraction there, Rogers.  2017 minus 1917.  And I didn’t even get a cake.”  He blew out a sardonic scoff at his deflective humor. 

“You were born in 1925,” he said, crossing his arms.

Bucky scowled, looking objectionably back up.  “I think I know my fucking birthday, Steve.  1917.  March 10.  Christ, if I was born in 1925, how in the hell could I have enlisted, huh?”  Okay, that settled it; they had to have addled his head.  

“You didn’t enlist, officially, until 1943,” he answered back, his eyes narrowing.  The math wasn’t adding up - not that anything was.  But this was the closest to ‘answers’ they had so far.  “Trust me, I had to pay for your lunch for two damn years,” he tried to joke.

Bucky pushed himself back to his feet, meeting Steve’s eyes and blew a stray strand of hair out of his face.  “I sure as hell don’t remember that.  Not that even if ya did have to spot me for a while I wouldn’t have earned it after putting your skinny ass up and charging you half a share of rent till you could hold down a job.”  Fuck, he missed this.  

“Wait….what?”  He shook his head.  “My ‘skinny ass’?  When did you EVER think I was skinny, Bucky?"

“Uh, how about all the way up until you got yourself science experimented so you could run off and join the army?”  Bucky exasperated with a spread of his arms. 

“Bucky, I didn’t even _meet_ you until after Project Rebirth.  You lived in Indiana until they sent you off to Europe to be some kind of super…soldier.  Well, maybe not ‘super’ but _very_ well trained!”

“The hell are you talking about?” He boggled.  “We’ve known each other since second grade!  _Indiana_?!  The hell with that!  I’m from Brooklyn!  Same as you!  And the only kinda special training I got was sniper training, but that was in the US.”  

Steve ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head.  “You’re not him…” he said, looking heartbroken.  “I don’t know who you are, or why you look so much like him, but you … you can’t be him.  You’re too old, and you’re not making any sense."

Bucky’s protests fell silently from his mouth as realization came like a gunshot.  This might be _a_ Steve Rogers, but it wasn’t _his_ Steve Rogers.  Steve hadn’t been ‘saved’ by Hydra; he hadn’t gone back in time and given a chance to prevent it from happening.  This was another man, so similar that it had fooled him, but it wasn’t _him_.  And just like that, all that hope that had been dredged up from places Bucky didn’t think it still could have existed popped.  And Bucky felt the weight of having killed his best friend: the man he grew up with, the man he had risked his life to save and visa versa time after time, all over again.  

He couldn’t take it back.  He couldn’t stop it.  

He swallowed around a thick lump in his throat as he averted his gaze, shaking his head.

“You’re right…”  He finally choked out, looking defeated.  “I… I don’t know what exactly is going on.  But you’re right.”  He wanted so badly to believe that Steve was just crazy; it was preferable to the alternative.  But a new picture was forming.  “I was following Pierce,” His words drifted out quietly as he looked off into the woods.  It hurt too much to meet Steve’s eyes.  “Ended up going through this, well… _portal_ for lack of a better word.  Thought it just took me someplace else.  I was in the New Mexico desert and when I went through I was in the woods a few miles from where you found me.  Then I thought, maybe they made a fuckin’ time machine.  Now?”  He gave a half-hearted shrug.  “I don’t know where I am.  Somewhere else entirely maybe?”

“Well you’re certainly not in New Mexico,” he said, his voice much gruffer than it was a few minutes before.  “Last I checked we’re in Europe - Romania, maybe?  They aren’t speaking Russian, but its close.”  He crossed his heavy arms and didn’t seem to even be able to look at Bucky now.  “I gave up caring weeks ago."

Anger flashed across Bucky’s face.  “You’re right.  You can’t be my Steve.  I don’t think he’d ever fucking give up caring.”  It shouldn’t bother him, and maybe he was putting the man on a pedestal, even now.  But he always held it over his own head that if it had been someone stronger, like Steve, that what he was forced to do never would have happened.  

“Hey, you don’t know a goddamned thing about me,” he snapped back, pointing his finger at the other man, feeling his hackles rising, looking into his eyes.  “Or what I’ve been through."

“Yeah – you’re right!  I don’t!”  Bucky blustered back.  “But you said the war was still going on?!  What the _hell_ are you doing out here in the middle of the woods of Romania or wherever?  And for – what – you said it’s been six months?  You … you can’t just _give up!_ ”  Raw emotion was tearing through the stony façade that Bucky had worn for the last few years.  “You… you can’t just let them _win!_ No matter _what_ they take from you!”  

“They took _everything_!” he bellowed, stepping up to him with a dangerous, predatory swagger.  “You saw me yesterday - I’m a monster.  And at any point I could just... just… just snap like all the others.  I’d kill everyone in sight!”  He eyes were bloodshot, and shining with unshed tears.  “They took _you_ …” he turned quickly, covering a sob as he turned his back on Bucky.  “I couldn’t save you…”

For a few moments, Bucky couldn’t find the words to answer.  He was churning with frustration and anger and empathy.  His hands balled to fists at his side as he stubbornly refused to let himself cry.  

“But you didn’t.” He finally said quietly.  “It’s been six months you said?  You… you didn’t snap.  You’re better than that.  Better than them… better than _me_.”  He shook his head, “They turn you into a goddamned werewolf, and you’re still a better person than all the rest of us put together.”  

“You don’t know that,” he growled, still unable to look at him.  “I let them go.  I let them all go… I thought I could stop them - help them.  But I couldn’t even…”  He hastily wiped his eyes and turned back to Bucky.  “Do you want to know how you died here? Huh?  Because I ripped your goddamn throat out.  Because I. couldn’t. stop. you.  I couldn’t _help_ you.”

He clenched his jaw so hard Bucky could see the muscle working on his cheek.  “How could I go back, after that?"

Bucky swallowed thickly, the memories so fresh and so poignant of his fight with his Steve on the helicarrier… And since then?  He hadn’t hid, but he certainly hadn’t gone back, sought out the help of Steve’s friends or allies.  If he had?  Maybe he could have stopped some of the terrible things that had happened to them, too.  

“I was one of them?  Like you? Turned into… a werewolf?” Bucky asked hesitantly.  He went crazy?  Like Steve was talking about with the rest of them?  
  
“Maybe you stopping me… killing me… was better than the alternative.” He muttered bitterly.  He swallowed thickly.  “In fact… good.  Good.  I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have wanted t’ be turned into a killer.  Not… not if you could stop me.”  

“Don’t you dare,” he quipped.  “I would give -anything- to bring you back… werewolf or not.  I would find a way.”

Bucky shook his head resolutely.  “No.  No.  Where I’m from… Hydra had me. I was their fucking lapdog.  And when they sent me after you, you… you _stopped fighting me_.  You _let_ me kill you.  Because by the time I remembered who the hell I was, it was _too late_.  How in the _hell_ could you leave me to live with myself after what I did to you?!  That’s WORSE, Steve.  Trust me.  I wish you’d killed me.”  As he gesticulated angrily, he couldn’t keep the tears back any more.  

Steve blinked, letting what Bucky was saying to him sink in.  “And you think it’s any easier for me?  To live with what I did to you?"

“It sounds like it was a mercy.”  Bucky muttered.  “I was going to hurt people, right?  Not just targets… but civilians?”  He took a breath.  “Tell me.  What happened?  What was it like?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” he said cautiously, walking back into the half-finished cabin and futzing around.  “Bucky… whoever you are.  My partner is dead…and I killed him.”  He shook his head, gathering some skins that were curing and piled them next to the makeshift fireplace.  “I couldn’t even protect the one person I was entrusted to … he was just a fucking k-“ the sound died in his throat, his break catching.  “… he had his whole life ahead of him.”

“Not anymore.” Bucky persisted.  “Hydra took that from him.  Trust me.  He’d rather die before being turned into something like that.  I still wish you’d killed me when you had the chance instead.  The world needs you more, Steve.  It was a better place with you.”

“Maybe in your world,” he sneered.  “I’m just another monster here.  A failure - captured, experimented on.  Left this… thing that couldn’t even save my best friend.  I failed, Bucky.  You…” he motioned with his hands at him, “You obviously survived.  Grew up - you’re still fighting?  That should say everything."

Bucky set his jaw.  “Well that makes two of us.”  He spat.  “I couldn’t save you.  I didn’t even have the justification that you did.  I was just brainwashed.  I just… I just can’t believe you’ve given up!  I’m trying to make Hydra _pay_ for what they did to me.  For what they did to _you_.”  He forced himself to stop for a moment, breath.  “Look.  If … if your Bucky was anything like me, he wouldn’t blame you.  He’d thank you.”   

Steve sat down on a stack of wood, rubbing his face.  “I don’t know what I was waiting for…” he said quietly.  “Maybe this is a sign.”

Bucky looked the man in front of him over.  It was… it was just _uncanny_.  He had been so used to being alone, of never being able to see that face again.  And yet there he was.  The same face.  The same voice.  It didn’t undo what he did.  It didn’t bring back his Steve.  And yet… “I came here following Pierce.  You probably don’t know the guy.  He was a head of Hydra where I’m from, maybe the head. I don’t know.  But he’s the guy who sent me after you.  I’m going after him.  You gonna help me, or are you gonna stay out here and sulk?”

Steve looked up, looking him in the eyes.  “Head of Hydra, huh?” he snorted.  “I guess you, whoever you are, have a partner…"

Bucky clapped Steve on the shoulder, surprised at himself just how much that lifted his spirits.  “Well, c’mon, Toto.  I may not be in New Mexico any more, but we have a road to follow.” 

“Wow,” he said, standing up.  “Nice to know whoever you are has Bucky’s keen sense of humor.  Hopefully your battle tactics are a bit more refined." 

**Author's Note:**

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